Soul Wounds Part One: The Boy with Two Daemons
by Li Goldberg
Summary: His Dark Materials/Naruto crossover. What would happen if the Naruto characters had daemons of their own? Written down versions of the episodes with daemons attached.
1. Naruto and Ehetia

A/N: Whoo, my first fanfic on this account! If you didn't figure it out, this is Li Michal, but I figure this account will be dedicated to this one series of fanfictions. If you didn't figure it out from the title and summary of the story, this is a His Dark Materials/Naruto crossover! Omygawsh! The way this fanfic works is I take the Naruto episodes and basically write them out, adding what would happen if the Naruto characters had daemons! Nifty, right? Yes. So, don't report me for plagiarism, because this is totally original! I checked!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or His Dark Materials.

**Soul Wounds Trilogy  
****Book One  
****The Boy with Two Daemons**

**Chapter One  
****Enter: Uzumaki Naruto and his Daemon Ehetia!**

Twelve years ago, a nine-tailed fox spirit attacked the village of Konoha. Its great tails thrashed and cut through the air like kunai, crushing everything in its path. Animals, trees, even mountains fell to its strength, and the Leaf ninja fought bravely to defend their homes. Many died—their daemons exploded into Dust which the nine-tailed fox promptly devoured like a treat, and others had their daemons cut from them by the fox's mighty tails. Some of those with their daemons cut recovered, but the large majority of them did not, and died within a few days.

There was one shinobi however, the Fourth Hokage: Namikaze Minato. His daemon was a fantastic golden eagle, cut from him at an early age by the Third Hokage so that she would be able to fly far from her human. And she did this then, flying into the fox's mouth and thus binding the fox to a small child, the Fourth Hokage's son. She burst into Dust inside the fox's mouth where it was usually absorbed by the tails, and this sealed it into the boy.

That boy's name was Uzumaki Naruto.

---

It was the greatest of offenses. The Hokage Faces were painted in ridiculous colors: green, blue, orange, white, red. The graffiti vandalized the figures of the greatest ninja ever to live in Konoha, and the boy who had done it swung his paint bucket proudly as he ran from those who would try to stop him. His daemon, a pretty female raccoon at the moment, bounded along beside him, dodging the paint whenever it sloshed from over the bucket rim.

"Can't catch me!" the boy shouted.

"Uzumaki Naruto!" his pursuers called. Their dog daemons (_So unimaginative, _Naruto thought) were barking their grievances after him, and his little raccoon daemon, named Ehetia, tucked her tail in and leaped up onto her human's shoulder, digging her little claws in to hang on as he ran.

---

"I hope you're not saying it's Naruto again," Sarutobi growled, looking up from his painting. His swan daemon, Gijega, trumpeted at the intruder, one of the ninja who had been chasing Naruto. He was panting heavily, his dog daemon beside him

"It _is_ Naruto again!" the ninja said. "He put graffiti all over the Hokage!"

Sarutobi sighed. _Twelve years,_ he thought, and Gijega shared his mind.

---

Ehetia changed into a moth, allowing Naruto to trick his pursuers and hide behind a camouflaged cloth near a fence. After those chasing him passed, he dropped the cloth and laughed. Ehetia wrapped herself as a pine martin around his neck.

"Naruto! Ehetia! What in the names of the Hokage do you think you're doing?"

Naruto squealed slightly and whirled around to face his sensei, Iruka. Ehetia, now a mouse, crawled inside Naruto's black t-shirt and hid from the piercing eyes of Iruka's crow daemon Yideyu. Yideyu cawed roughly.

"Yideyu's right, Naruto," Iruka said. "And in case you were wondering, she said you're supposed to be in class. Now get moving!"

---

It appeared as though Naruto denied the "offer" to go back to class, for now he lay in the center of the floor, tied with rope and with Ehetia sulking angrily as a martin close by. She pulled her paws over her whiskers and glared at Iruka and Yideyu reproachfully.

"I'm at the end of my rope, Naruto," Iruka was saying, while Yideyu strutted along the desk, plucking at her feathers intermittently. "You've got Yideyu and I running ragged. You've failed all of your exams, and tomorrow you have another chance! Why don't you take things seriously for once?"

All of the students had been gathered to watch, for it was in the middle of class, and Naruto was being made an example of. The children and their daemons giggled quietly as their sensei reprimanded the class clown.

Naruto looked away with a huff.

Yideyu cawed again.

"Fine!" Iruka snapped. "Because of you, the class will review the transformation jutsu again! Remember that your daemons must transform as well!"

The class groaned audibly. "Why do we always have to pay for _your _screw-ups, Naruto?" one girl named Ino asked. Her daemon, currently in the form of a caracal, hissed.

"Like I care," Naruto growled as Iruka untied him and he got in line.

The first to go was Haruno Sakura and her daemon Igesu. She transformed without a hitch, and Iruka checked her off.

"Did you see that, Sasuke?" she asked the boy behind her, blushing. "I did it!"

He didn't answer her, however, and stepped up himself. His daemon quietly changed with him, and Iruka marked him off as well.

Naruto was behind Sasuke, and he walked forward boldly with Ehetia by his side. "All right, Ehetia," he said, "let's do this!"

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Iruka threw himself back against the desk, almost tipping it over, and Yideyu squawked and ruffled her feathers in an extremely agitated way. She flew once around the classroom before clawing at Naruto's head, and he promptly changed back after swatting her away.

"Ha! Sensei, I got you with my sexy jutsu!" Naruto hollered, howling with laughter. Even his daemon had become a remarkably seductive shape, a lean Abyssinian that growled appropriately.

Iruka blushed furiously for a few seconds, then seemed to regain his bearings. He towered over Naruto and roared, "Cut the stupid tricks! This is your last warning!"

---

A hawk sounded from somewhere above. Ehetia turned herself into a golden eagle and began to fly up to greet it, but Yideyu cawed angrily and she returned to Naruto's side as a monkey to help him scrub the Hokage faces.

"This sucks," Naruto muttered, and Ehetia nodded eagerly her agreement.

"You're not going home until you've cleaned off every single drop of paint," Iruka warned.

Naruto looked up at him. "Who cares?" he shouted. "It's not like I have anyone waiting at home for me!."

"Maybe you should cut the boy some slack," Yideyu muttered softly into Iruka's ear, giving it a soft and loving nip. "He wants to be great, you know."

"I know," Iruka whispered back. "But he has to have punishment. You know that as well as I."

"All too well," the crow said, and then settled quietly on his shoulder.

"Hey, Naruto!" Iruka called down to his student. Naruto looked up.

"What do you want _now_, sensei?" he asked angrily.

"I was just thinking we could go out for ramen after you finish up," Iruka explained. "The good stuff at Ichiraku's." He looked down. Naruto was gazing up at him eagerly.

"Now that's what I call motivation!" he hollered. "Ehetia and I'll have this cleaned up in no time!"

Her monkey paws and his hands moved more quickly along the stone, and before Iruka knew it, Naruto was done.

---

It was evening, and the streets were dim. The lights came from the numerous shops and stands still set up, and one such stand was that of Ichiraku Ramen. It was warm and clean just inside the cloth that served as a small awning. Ehetia was watching Naruto practically inhale his ramen with her mouse paws on the rim of the bowl, and Yideyu was resting quietly with her head pulled down into her breast. The warm yellow light gave her feathers a reddish glow to offset her blue-black feathers and turned Ehetia a warm milky gold. Naruto had taken off his goggles, and Ehetia was standing in them.

_Such an odd color for a daemon,_ thought Iruka, looking down at her. Then, taking a glance at Naruto's hair, _I suppose he must get it from his father._

But there was a more important matter at hand, one that Iruka would get to the bottom of if it was the last thing he did.

"Naruto," he said.

"Mm-hm?" Naruto asked through a mouthful of noodles, slurping them up from in between his chopsticks.

"Why would you do that to the Hokage faces?" Iruka asked. "You do know who the Hokage are, don't you?"

"'Course I do," Naruto said, finishing off his bowl with a flourish. "Everybody does. They were the greatest shinobi of their time, right? The best of the best? And their daemons were the most beautiful and most powerful, too, like Gijega. And the Fourth Hokage with his golden eagle—they were the ones who saved the village from the nine-tailed fox. They were the most amazing."

"Then why did you..." Iruka began, but Naruto cut him off.

"Because I'm going to be greater than all of them. We are—me and Ehetia. Me. Naruto. The next Hokage. Can you imagine it? Then everyone will have to stop disrespecting me and start looking _up_ to me! By the way," he continued meekly. "I kind of wanted to ask a favor, sensei."

"Let me guess, you want another bowl?" Iruka asked, drumming his fingers along the counter.

"No," Naruto said, "I wanna try on your headband. Please? Pretty please? It'll only be for a second!"

Yideyu rose up and squawked her quiet laughter, while Iruka reached up and flicked his metal and cloth headband. "What, this?" he asked, and Naruto nodded eagerly. Ehetia was now balancing on the rim of the bowl, about to fall in. "No way. You can only wear the Leaf headband when you finally graduate from the Academy and become a ninja. You've gotta pass the test tomorrow." He looked down at Naruto softly, who looked increasingly indignant. Ehetia, who had fallen into the bowl at Iruka's words, pulled herself out and crawled up onto Naruto's shoulder.

"That's not fair!" Naruto shouted.

Iruka laughed, and Naruto's face turned red. "Is that why you took off your goggles?" he asked.

"I want another bowl!" the boy demanded. Iruka laughed again.

---

"We will now start the final exam," Iruka announced. It was the next morning. The class was prepared: their daemons were all changed into creatures suited for whatever might come their way. Yideyu herself was perched on Iruka's shoulder, her feathers freshly preened. "When your name is called," Iruka continued, "proceed to the testing room. The final test will be on the clone jutsu."

Naruto felt panic rise within him. Ehetia felt it too. _Oh no!_ he thought. _That's my worst jutsu! Cloning Ehetia too is so hard! We're never gonna pass!_

_---_

The headbands were stacked in rows and columns along the desk in the testing room. Mizuki-sensei with his lemur daemon sat at one end of the table, Iruka and Yideyu at the other end. Naruto came into the room, Ehetia as a golden eagle perched proudly on his shoulder, and he stood facing the two instructors.

Pulling his hands together in a sign, Naruto concentrated on his chakra, being careful to send just as much to Ehetia as well. The chakra and Dust began to swirl around him as he thought _Clone jutsu!_ and released his chakra.

There was a small explosion, and two pitiful clones appeared beside him: one of himself, and one of Ehetia, not even in her eagle form, but in her raccoon form.

Naruto looked up to the instruction table. Iruka looked extremely upset, while Mizuki seemed more apathetic, holding his lemur daemon to his chest.

"You fail!" Iruka shouted, and Yideyu cawed her approval.

"Iruka-sensei," Mizuki said after a few quiet minutes in which Naruto looked like he was on the verge of tears. Ehetia had crawled into his jumpsuit as a mouse, and was cuddled up tightly against his chest. "He's off, but his moves weren't bad and he did hang in there and replicate. This is his third try, so we both know he really wants to graduate. Shouldn't we pass him?"

"Mizuki-sensei," Iruka said. He noticed Yideyu eyeing Mizuki's lemur warily. Its orange eyes were staring almost hungrily at Naruto. "The other students created at least three effective replications. But Naruto only managed to create one complete one, and look at it. Its pitiful. We can't let him graduate like that."

---

The schoolyard was full of children and their daemons, headbands fresh on their heads, their chatter wild and excited.

"He called me in first!"

"He said I passed with flying colors!"

"I almost didn't pass because I was one daemon short, but I did it!"

Naruto sat alone in the shade on the swing. Ehetia was clinging to the rope as a pine martin, her tail wrapped around the taut cord.

"It's not fair, Ehetia," Naruto whispered. "We've done it so many times!"

She licked his forehead. "Don't worry about it," she said. "We'll get it."

The children's parents were gathering now to pick their children up, and this added insult to Naruto's injury.

"Maybe it's because they have someone to take care of them," he spat, and Ehetia licked him again.

"Hey, don't say that. We have each other," she said. "We'll always have each other."

"There. Do you see him?" someone said in the crowd. Naruto didn't hear her. Her sparrow daemon was perched on her shoulder, a tiny pouf of feathers. Her friend, a bland girl with a white rabbit for a daemon, was clutching hers to her chest and was looking at Naruto with hatred. He was too busy talking with his own daemon to notice.

"I hear he's the only one that didn't pass," the second girl whispered.

"Well, it serves him right," the first said.

"Yeah," said the second girl. "Just imagine what would happen if _he_ became a ninja."

Naruto was putting his goggles back on. Ehetia hopped onto his shoulder and wrapped her tail comfortingly around his neck.

"I mean," the second girl continued, "he's the boy who..."

"Hush!" said the first girl. "We're not allowed to talk about that."

Suddenly there was a noise beside him. Ehetia had been so involved trying to cheer her human up that she hadn't even noticed the presence of Mizuki-sensei, his lemur daemon hanging on his arm like a baby. He was smiling brightly down at Naruto, and the lemur had that hungry look in her eye once more.

Watching the happenings were Sarutobi and Iruka. Gijega and Yideyu sat with their feet tucked under them, listening to their humans talk.

"Iruka," Sarutobi said, "there's something we need to talk about."

---

The sun was just beginning its long descent toward the horizon, its edge just kissing the western hills, as Mizuki and Naruto sat together on the balcony of a small building.

"Iruka-sensei's tough," Mizuki was saying, "but he's not against you."

"Then why?" Naruto asked. "Why only me? All of the other students passed, but I'm the only one..."

They sat on the very edge of the balcony, Ehetia as a small squirrel sitting atop Naruto's head, Mizuki's lemur daemon curled up next to her human.

"He wants you to be strong," Mizuki said. "He wants you to be strong with all his heart, and that won't happen if he goes easy on you."

And then Mizuki said something Naruto hadn't expected. Ehetia perked up at the words, but the lemur seemed oddly calm.

"He's like you, you know? No parents, no family, no one to come home to."

"But," Naruto said, floundering for the words, "this time I really wanted to graduate."

"Silly," Ehetia said in his ear, "do you think that makes it okay?"

But Mizuki laughed—either at Ehetia or at Naruto's words the boy only found out a few moments later. "Then I guess I have to tell you," Mizuki said, a fox-like grin plastered on his face. "It's a secret," he continued, "but I'm gonna let you in on it."

The lemur was grinning too, Ehetia noticed, and she plucked Naruto's ear with her paw. "I wonder what's so funny," she whispered.

"A secret, Ehetia!" Naruto said excitedly back, pulling her off his head and holding her to his chest. She'd turned into a raccoon by now, and was just as eager as he was to hear this almighty secret.

---

The moon hung still and clear over Iruka as he lay back in bed, gazing at it through the window behind him. Clouds feathered the night and hid the stars, but the moon was bright and true, and swathed him in an ocean of blue light. Yideyu was perched on the headboard, asleep.

"_Iruka,"_ Sarutobi had said.

"_What is it, Hokage-sama?"_ Iruka had replied, and for a moment his daemon had looked up to meet his gaze from where she sat with Gijega.

"_I know how you feel," _the Hokage said. _"You grew up just like Naruto, without knowing the love of a mother and father, the warmth of a family."_

And suddenly the image of the nine-tailed fox destroying his world came crashing back to Iruka. Yideyu sat up abruptly, startled by the image her human was having, and remembering too. She remembered as he did the way the fox broke the bones of his parents' daemons, of how it cut them away and tossed them aside like rags. He had wanted to be there, wanted to protect them, but someone pulled him away, and he never saw them again. No—he did. He saw them in the coffins and that was when his daemon settled into her crow form. They remembered together the great demon eyes of the fox, how it was more terrible than anything anyone had ever known.

Before he knew it, he had fallen asleep again, with the fox as his company in that dark, dark world.

"Iruka-sensei, wake up!"

That was the voice of Mizuki-sensei. There was no doubt.

Iruka rolled off his bed and Yideyu flew to his shoulder as he opened the door to find Mizuki, fully dressed, standing tensely before him. His daemon clung to his shoulder, frantically bobbing her head up and down and chattering incessantly in his ear.

"What is it? What's happened?" Iruka asked.

"You need to come to Hokage-sama's right away," Mizuki said. He sounded like he had been running for quite some time. "It's Naruto," he continued before Iruka had the chance to ask any questions. "He stole the sacred scroll."

Yideyu gave out a loud caw that kept in time with Iruka's own shout of despair. "You mean the Scroll of Sealing?" he gasped. "No!"

---

The thick canopy of the forest shielded the ground from the rays of the moonlight, making it difficult to see, or, in Naruto's case, to read. He had the scroll propped in front of him, Ehetia reading over his shoulder as a bush baby and saying what it said out loud so he could understand it.

"The first one says 'Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu,'" Ehetia read dutifully.

"No!" Naruto moaned. "That's my worst technique!"

"That's what it says," Ehetia squeaked. "Get crackin', Naruto."

---

At least ten ninja were standing outside the village gate, their daemons sending up a ruckus with their snarls, the humans themselves making quite a noise.

"Hokage!" one said, his ferret daemon baring her teeth. "Naruto's gone too far this time! This isn't just a prank!"

"That's right!" another agreed. "The scroll contains secrets that were sealed by the First Hokage—secrets known only to our village! If they fall into the wrong hands they could destroy our entire way of life!"

_Naruto!_ Iruka thought frantically as he and Mizuki came running up. _What have you done?_

"All right," Sarutobi conceded. Gijega raised her head and neck so that it arched emphatically. "Bring Naruto here at once."

"Sir!" the shinobi shouted, and they leaped away without a trace to leave behind except for the wind.

---

Iruka leaped along the roofs of buildings, Yideyu flying close beside him. He stopped for a moment, breathing heavily, looking around frantically. _Where would he go?_ he thought as the crow landed on his arm.

—

Down the city streets Mizuki ran, his lemur hanging on his shoulder and grinning from ear to ear as her human was.

"This is excellent," Mizuki said to her. "Now that I told everyone what Naruto did, I can eliminate him and take the scroll for myself."

"Yes," his daemon said, "and together we will become the most powerful ninja Konoha has ever procured!" She giggled excitedly.

"They'll be glad he's gone," Mizuki growled, propelling himself forward with another thrusting stride.

---

Naruto panted heavily. Ehetia was lying on her side as a rabbit, her little chest heaving and her little heart beating rapidly. The scroll was strapped to his back, and they were both feeling extremely proud of themselves.

Suddenly, a shadow crossed over Naruto's lap, and he looked up to see Iruka scowling at him angrily.

"It's all over," Iruka snarled, Yideyu looking extremely agitated on his shoulder. He let out a wicked little laugh, and his daemon let out a caw when his shoulder shook.

But Naruto laughed too, and this took Iruka by surprise. Ehetia hopped up and landed as a finch on Naruto's head. She chirruped happily.

"Caught me already?" Naruto asked with a grin. "Not bad, sensei. I only had time to learn one technique."

"He's been out here practicing," Yideyu cawed softly into Iruka's ear so that Naruto wouldn't be able to understand her. "You can tell how hard he's been working—see the sweat?"

"Listen, Iruka-sensei!" Naruto said excitedly, his arms spread wide. "I'm gonna show you this amazing jutsu and you're gonna let me graduate and then everything'll be okay! That's the way it works, right?" Iruka noticed Ehetia hop from claw to claw on Naruto's head, just as genuinely excited as he was. "Anyone who learns a jutsu from this scroll passes!"

"What?" Iruka asked, shocked. "Who gave you that idea?" _Something's wrong._ Yideyu looked around wildly, but Iruka could tell that in the darkness, even her bright eyes would pick up very little.

"Mizuki-sensei told me about it!" Naruto continued. He didn't seem to notice Yideyu's behavior, which was good. If he panicked, Iruka would have a difficult time subduing him. "He told me where to find the scroll and..." Ehetia pecked at Naruto's head and then looked at Iruka fearfully, turning into a pine martin with her teeth bared defensively.

"Mizuki?" Yideyu cawed, and of course Naruto couldn't understand her. Daemons can only be understood by their humans unless they choose to be understood by others. "Why?"

But her question was cut short as she cawed shrilly and flew off of Iruka's shoulder—Iruka turned around to see that she had narrowly avoided a kunai, and now more were headed straight for him.

Without thinking, he pushed Naruto out of the way. The boy landed on his back several feet away, and then he felt the cold metal piercing his skin, and he felt Yideyu give a cry of pain and fall from her flight to the ground at his feet as the force of the blow pushed him up against a shed wall.

"So," Mizuki said from somewhere in the trees. "I see you've found our little hideaway." His lemur gave a bark of laughter.

"So that's how it is?" Iruka asked. He reached out in vain for his own daemon, but she was too far away for him to reach while pinned against the wall. "I should have known!" He reached again. "Yideyu!"

But suddenly, Mizuki's lemur leapt down from the tree and grabbed hold of the crow daemon just as she was righting herself. She grabbed hold of Yideyu's wing and neck and twisted both so that Iruka gave off a strangled gasp of pain and felt his shoulder pop.

"Naruto!" Mizuki called. "Give me the scroll! Now!"

Ehetia and Naruto were both frozen in shock, Ehetia once again a rabbit, but trembling this time. "W-What?" Naruto asked, stunned. "What's going on here?" He looked from sensei to sensei, then at the daemons wrestling among the leaf litter. Mizuki's lemur was winning, and sat upon Yideyu forcefully.

Pulling a kunai from his leg, Iruka slid down against the wall a few inches before gasping, "Naruto! Don't let Mizuki have the scroll!" Those damn lemur paws! They caught Yideyu by the throat and held her twisting form high off the ground, choking Iruka to silence for a moment. "It contains forbidden jutsu that could put this village in grave danger," he continued, his voice harsh. "Mizuki used you to get the scroll for himself, for his own power!"

Both Naruto and his daemon seemed to snap out of their stupor. Ehetia became a hissing wildcat and glared at Mizuki with hatred, Naruto doing the same.

"Naruto," Mizuki said softly, keeping the boy's attention trained on himself so that he wouldn't look toward the now silent daemons. "Iruka's just trying to scare you because he doesn't want you to have the scroll."

And now Naruto looked at Iruka, and Ehetia stopped spitting and gazed at him too, her light tawny fur making her seem a ghost in the moonlight.

"Stop _lying_, Mizuki!" Iruka snapped. The lemur had not yet let Yideyu go. "Naruto, you can't let him have the scroll!"

Mizuki laughed, and the lemur twisted harder. Iruka groaned and sagged against the wall. "I'll tell you who's _really_ lying, Iruka," he hissed, and Iruka looked up at him in shock and pain.

"No, Mizuki!" he gasped.

But Mizuki had no attention for him. He turned to Naruto again and said, "They've been lying to you your whole life, Naruto, since the decree twelve years ago."

"What decree?" Naruto asked, and Ehetia crowded closer to him, rubbing up against his legs.

"Everyone knows except you," Mizuki said, venom in his tone. "Iruka's hiding it from you even now—he'd do anything to shut me up! Unfortunately, with his daemon held down, he really can't do anything." He laughed again, but Naruto seemed too enthralled to care.

"Don't tell him, Mizuki!" Iruka shouted. "It's forbidden!"

"The decree is that no one can tell you the nine-tailed fox is inside _you_!" Mizuki snarled, and his daemon let out a raucous laugh.

Naruto gasped. Ehetia puffed herself up and snarled in warning.

"The spirit that destroyed our village and killed Iruka's parents has taken over _your _body," Mizuki continued mercilessly. All the while his daemon kept twisting, and Iruka felt that something might break soon. "You _are_ the nine-tailed fox!"

"Stop it!" Iruka begged, a kunai ripping his shirt as he pulled free from the wall. Yideyu cawed angrily and thrashed against the lemur, who managed to hold her fast despite her pecking.

"They've all been sneaking around, hiding things from you your whole life," Mizuki continued heedlessly. "Didn't you think it was strange how they treated you?"

Naruto was gazing blankly ahead, shocked. Ehetia wasn't moving. "Like dirt!" Mizuki said. "Like they hated you for just being alive!"

Iruka saw tears pricking the corners of Naruto's eyes. Ehetia was mewling loudly. "No!" Naruto ground out, pushing his eyebrows together in concentration and pain. He closed his eyes, repeated the word, and began to throw chakra and Dust around himself and Ehetia.

_Naruto!_ Iruka thought, agonized. How could he watch this? He couldn't, but he had no choice. Yideyu was still flapping madly against the lemur daemon despite her throbbing wing which Iruka could feel as well.

"That's why you will never be accepted in this village!" Mizuki snarled. "Even your beloved sensei hates your guts!"

Iruka tried to move, then clutched at the wound that had felled Yideyu in the first place at his thigh. The blood stained his white cloth red, and he gritted his teeth against the pain.

"_Iruka,"_ Gijega had said, and Iruka had been shocked that she was speaking to him and not through Sarutobi, _"Naruto never had a mother or father to care for him. He's shut out of everything and doesn't know why. Most people won't even look at him. How would you feel if everywhere you went, people turned their backs on you? Afraid of you, like you had no daemon at all?" _And the way she said that instilled in Iruka a true fear, for a person without a daemon was like a person without a head. _"That's why he gets in trouble," _the swan had continued, _"so people will notice him. It may not show, but he's always thinking about the family he doesn't have. He's hurting inside."_

Mizuki's voice broke through Iruka's reverie. "Die, Naruto!" he screamed, twirling a huge shuriken on his hand. Then it was thrown, and Naruto was trying to crawl away to safety with Ehetia bounding ahead of him as a rabbit again, terrified for both their lives.

"Naruto!" Iruka shouted. "Get down!"

And then there was pain shooting along his back, and Iruka could tell Yideyu felt it too because she gave a scream of terror inside his mind. He held himself over Naruto and Ehetia, supporting himself with his hands and knees. He gritted his teeth against the breathtaking pain.

"Why?" Naruto whispered, and Iruka could hear the fear in his voice.

"Because we're the same," Iruka choked. "When I lost my parents, no one seemed to care. They didn't have time for me and my daemon, who'd settled as a crow when I saw my parents in their coffins. They forgot we were there, like we were shadows. My grades dropped, I became the class clown, and even though Yideyu settled, no one seemed to see that as a sign of maturity. They all thought I'd grown up too fast. But I just wanted them to see me, to see us, to know our names. Iruka and Yideyu... My school wasn't good enough to get their attention, so we did crazy things together, and then we had to pay for it.

"It was hard," Iruka continued, tears streaming from his eyes. "I know that's how you feel, Naruto. You feel lonely and it hurts inside. It hurts your daemon too, I can tell, just like it hurt mine. I could have been there for you more." Naruto was looking up at him, frightened still. "I let you down," Iruka said. "I'm sorry. No one should have to suffer that much. No one should be alone like that, even if they always have their daemon as company. It's not enough."

Mizuki was laughing, and his lemur twisted Yideyu hard enough to make Iruka cry out. "Don't make me laugh!" Mizuki shouted, watching Iruka shudder. "Iruka always hated you, Naruto! He was orphaned because the nine-tailed fox killed his parents. And that beast is now inside you!"

Naruto looked away. Ehetia curled up against his chest.

"He'd say anything to get the scroll from you," Mizuki continued.

And then Naruto was dashing away with Ehetia as a swift fox right alongside him.

"Naruto!" Iruka called, reaching out a hand.

"You know," Mizuki said, finally leaping down from his tree, "once he makes up his mind, nothing can change it. He's going to use the scroll to take revenge on the village. You saw that look in his eye, didn't you?" Mizuki straightened, and his daemon fled Yideyu to leap up onto his arm. Iruka looked, and it pained him to see her lying there so badly wounded.

"Those are the eyes of a beast. He and that Ehetia of his. Did you see how she was a fox? She's going to settle like that, I can tell."

Pulling the shuriken from his back, Iruka took a moment to take a deep breath and allow the pain to subside. Then he growled, "No. Naruto isn't like that!" Standing, he swung his arm in a wide, clumsy arch, throwing the shuriken for Mizuki's head. Mizuki sidestepped and easily dodged the attack.

"You're a joke," he said. "Look at you. My daemon dislocated Yideyu's wing, which means your arm should be feeling it too. As soon as I eliminate Naruto and get the scroll, I'll be back for you. And I'll make sure to dislocate your daemon's other wing personally." Without another word, Mizuki and his daemon leaped off.

The threat was real. Mizuki wouldn't make something like that idly. To touch another's daemon was to break the most horrible taboo known to mankind. Even babies knew of the taboo. A sudden instinct to protect Yideyu crept over Iruka, and he crawled toward her, cradling her in his arms.

"Can you hold yourself upright?" he asked her softly.

"Can you?" she asked in return, and after righting her, Iruka placed her carefully on his shoulder.

"All right," he said, "let's go."

---

Sarutobi sat in front of a violet crystal ball, Gijega opposite him and staring just as focused into its clear depths.

"This is not good, Gijega," Sarutobi said quietly. "Mizuki has a big mouth."

"He made Naruto feel so bad," Gijega trumpeted, "worse than he's ever felt, it could unleash the power inside of him. If Naruto keeps tampering with the scroll, the seal that locks the fox spirit inside of him will be broken, and the beast could come out." She trailed off and looked down at her wing, seeming troubled.

Sarutobi, of course, felt her distress and asked, "What is it?"

"I fear," Gijega said, looking up at him, "that if the seal were to be fully destroyed, Ehetia could be killed by the fox spirit, but Naruto would not. A boy without a daemon... that would be awful."

"If that happens," Sarutobi said, placing his hands on the crystal in front of him, "then I fear for us all. The fox would become Naruto's daemon, and would take control of him."

---

A false Iruka bounded along amid the trees, his false Yideyu clinging to his chest with her talons and her wings. _There he is, _the false Iruka thought, seeing Naruto ahead of him. He was bounding along on all fours through the branches, with Ehetia as a vibrant red fox at his side, the scroll still slung to his back. He looked like he was running for his life.

"Naruto!" the false Iruka shouted, drawing closer to the boy. "Everything Mizuki said was a lie! Give me the scroll! Hurry! He's coming after you to take it away!"

And then suddenly, Naruto stopped on a branch and propelled himself upward, kicking the false Iruka out of the trees. Ehetia grabbed the false Yideyu in her fox mouth and bit down hard on her wing before throwing her to the ground alongside her human.

The false Iruka landed on the ground with a thud, skidding to a halt, his arm on fire from Ehetia's attack on his daemon.

Naruto stood to face him, panting.

"It can't be," the false Iruka said, pulling himself upright with his arm dragging a little bit.

Naruto pulled the scroll from his back and fell against the tree behind him. Ehetia limped into his lap.

"How did you know?" the false Iruka asked in a growl. "How did you know that it was me and not Iruka?" And the false Iruka changed and became Mizuki, and the false Yideyu changed and became the lemur. Her shoulder was bleeding quite badly from where Ehetia had snatched her from the air.

Naruto let out a mocking laugh, then he burst into smoke as Mizuki had, and became the true Iruka. Ehetia became Yideyu, her beak bright from the lemur's blood. Her wing was still sore—Iruka could feel it pounding from the effort of keeping up with him, but he would have to tend to it later. The scroll became a large log as Iruka said, "Because I'm Iruka."

Mizuki stood, the look on his face grim. His daemon was hissing angrily. "You're a fool," he said. "Why are you protecting that freak? He's the one that wiped out your family."

"I don't care what you say," Iruka panted. "You're not getting your hands on that scroll."

"As if you could stop me," Mizuki said mockingly. "Don't you get it? Naruto is just like me."

"How's that?" Iruka asked.

"He wants the scroll for his own power and his own vengeance. That's how beasts are. Even his daemon became a fox, you saw, a beast. They'll pour all their rage into the scroll and destroy everything."

"You're right," Iruka said after a short pause. Yideyu pressed herself into his chest and glared hard at Mizuki. "That is how beasts are." Iruka noticed his body was shaking from fatigue, but he continued, "But that's not how Naruto is. He's nothing like that. Naruto and Ehetia are one of a kind. They work hard, they put their whole heart into everything they do. Sure they mess up sometimes, and everybody jumps on them, but their suffering only makes them stronger. That's what separates them from the nine-tails. So you're wrong. They're Uzumaki Naruto and Ehetia of the Village Hidden in the Leaves!"

Mizuki stared at Iruka's trembling body, and at Yideyu, who was trembling as well. She cawed weakly as he pulled a second giant shuriken from his back.

"Huh," Mizuki said while his own daemon hissed, "you really believe that drivel? Iruka, I was gonna save you for later, but I changed my mind."

Iruka tensed, but found it difficult. He stared at Mizuki with a lax expression. _So this is where it ends? _he thought as Mizuki shouted "You're finished!" and charged forward.

But then Mizuki cried out in pain, and Iruka looked up. Naruto was standing just a little ways away, watching as Mizuki skidded to a halt from his kick. Ehetia, still in her bright red fox form, was standing in front of Iruka guardedly, her entire body blocking him. The shuriken that had been thrown spun harmlessly into the forest.

"Not bad, for a little punk," Mizuki said sourly, standing up.

Naruto placed his hand on the scroll by his side. "If you ever lay a hand on my sensei," he growled, "I'll kill you!" Ehetia barked her agreement.

"Such big words," Mizuki taunted. "I can completely destroy you with a single move!"

Naruto let his hands fall into the form of a seal. "Take your best shot, fool," he urged. "I'll give it back to you a thousandfold!"

"Let's see you try!" Mizuki shouted. "Show me what you can do, nine-tailed fox!"

"Shadow-clone jutsu!"

Before Iruka's eyes, there were suddenly a thousand Narutos and a thousand Ehetias. All the foxes were snarling and spitting, and all the Narutos were sitting quietly, their fists raised.

"Those aren't just illusions," Yideyu whispered proudly, "they're solid clones! He's mastered an extremely advanced jutsu!"

Mizuki and his daemon whirled around, unsure of what to do with all the new shouts that bombarded their ears. Mizuki finally tripped and fell, staring at all the clones with wide eyes.

"If you're not coming," said one Naruto, and his Ehetia raised her hackles threateningly, "then we're gonna come after you."

Mizuki screamed into the air, and then the Narutos were on him with their foxes right behind.

---

The injured, unconscious Mizuki lay at Naruto's feet. Morning was coming, throwing light into the forest, and Ehetia was sitting on Mizuki's lemur, cleaning her paw. Naruto laughed nervously and said, "Sorry—I got a little carried away. You okay, sensei?"

"Yeah," Iruka said softly.

Yideyu plucked at his sleeve. "My wing," she muttered, and Iruka grabbed hold of the one she held out for him and ever-so-gently slipped it back into its socket. He gritted his teeth, as he felt it too, then sighed at the relieving pop. "He's amazing," the crow continued while Iruka was working on her wing. "He wants to surpass all the Hokage, and he might."

Iruka sighed and leaned back against the tree, rubbing his own sore shoulder. "Naruto," he said. "C'mere a minute. I've got something I want to give you."

---

Back at the gate, the other ninja who had gone searching for Naruto were gathered in a reconnaissance crowd, their daemons snarling amongst themselves while the men spoke.

"You're telling me no one can find Naruto?"

"Not a clue."

"This is bad news—we've gotta smoke 'im out or something!"

Suddenly, Gijega's trumpet called the men to order. "There's no longer any need to worry," Sarutobi said from behind her. "The scroll's safe. Naruto will be back soon."

---

"Sensei, when can we open our eyes?" Naruto asked. Ehetia sat on his shoulder, a mouse, but her paws were obediently covering her eyes after Iruka's strange order to keep them shut.

"Now," Iruka said. He was standing now, and Yideyu sat on his own shoulder, her wing wrapped in some loose cloth that Iruka had in his pack to ensure it wouldn't pop out again.

Naruto's eyes opened eagerly, and Ehetia removed her paws and looked to see what was different about her human sensei. He was holding her human's goggles, and didn't have a headband.

"That means...!" she squeaked excitedly, but Iruka interrupted her.

"Congratulations," he said. "You graduate! And to celebrate, I've got a surprise. We're going out for ramen tonight, my treat!"

There was a long pause. Naruto and Ehetia were oddly silent, and Iruka looked down at them to make sure nothing was wrong. Naruto's lips were moving, but no sound was coming forth, and if there had been no quiet birdsong in the background, Iruka might have thought he'd gone deaf.

Then suddenly, Naruto leapt upon him, and, losing her balance, Ehetia became a sparrow and flew into Yideyu, cuddling underneath her good wing.

Iruka was pushed to the ground, laughing, with Naruto hugging him so tightly he could barely breathe, but they were both laughing, they were all laughing, even though Yideyu's wing started hurting again and the wound in Iruka's thigh began to bleed. They were laughing.


	2. Konohamaru and Iegi

A/N: Here's my second chapter. I was asked to make my new chapters less canon, and I'm trying, but until I get all the character introductions out of the way, that will be difficult. The daemons come into more philosophical/ideological things, as you'll see in upcoming chapters, and they're major fighters. You'll also see more later on about how they link up to their humans and their personalities, and, when they're fighting, what it means for them to bleed. Well, I love you all and I hope you enjoy! Be sure to check out my other account, Li Michal.

Disclaimer: I do not own His Dark Materials or Naruto.

**Soul Wounds Trilogy  
****Book One  
****The Boy with Two Daemons**

**Chapter Two  
****My Name is Konohamaru, and this is My Daemon Iegi**

The day was bright and warm. Waves of heat rolled off the Hokage monument as if those very faces and their amazing daemons were giving it off, as if they were still alive, as if they were sending great sheets of hot breath over the village. But it was welcome, for it was late spring, and the warmth would cause the flowers to bloom very, very soon.

On the balcony of one building, overlooking the monument, a photographer leaned against his camera and tripod, a bored, annoyed look on his face. His daemon, a gray parrot, was busy fiddling with a troublesome wire on the camera.

"Listen, kid," the man said, "are you sure you want me to take your picture like that?"

"Just do it already!" Naruto said impatiently. "Come on already, come on, come on!"

The man sighed and ducked behind his camera. His parrot moved to allow him access. "Don't blame me later," he said sourly, and snapped the picture.

To the outside man, it was a ridiculous photo: Naruto had covered himself in white and red paint, had abstained from putting his headband on, and had reached out to the photographer in a very godlike, pretentious manner. Ehetia was perched on his shoulder, a snarling red fox. If one knew where she got her shape, they would be terrified, for her eyes gleamed red and slitted like the nine-tails.

---

It was later that day at the academy that Naruto sat before Sarutobi, Gijega, an old man in a bowl-cap, and his dog daemon as they looked over his ninja registration form in a long, empty room. Sarutobi's old hands held the paper loosely, for he was really studying the grinning boy beyond the foolish picture. He had seen Ehetia's eyes in the photo, and they worried him.

Naruto laughed a bit. He proceeded on a long rambling speech about how he prepared for the picture, ending a few minutes later with Sarutobi saying tiredly, "Take it again."

"No way!" Naruto shouted after a short pause. Ehetia leaped from his shoulder to his lap as a pine martin, arched defensively.

"We can't accept this photo," Sarutobi continued.

"Yeah, well I'm not doing it again!" Naruto said.

The two stared at each other (though Ehetia couldn't force herself to meet Gijega's fearsome eyes, which seemed to be searching for something), and then Naruto's hands swept themselves into the form of a seal. Taking her cue, Ehetia prepared herself for the distinctive surge of outright _sexy_ chakra and felt her body morph into that of a plaintively mewling male Abyssinian while Naruto became a voluptuous young woman surrounded by a faint mist.

For a moment, Sarutobi blinked in surprise. Then he let out a slight cry, Gijega trumpeting faintly, and nearly toppled out of his chair. The feathers along Gijega's neck raised like the hackles on a dog and her wings beat powerfully as though to drive the image away. The reaction was different than that of Iruka's, but it was nonetheless effective, and, to Naruto and Ehetia, utterly satisfying.

The two changed back, slightly surprised by the old man's reaction, while something lurked behind the door.

"That's the sexy jutsu, you say?" Sarutobi asked, wiping his nose while Gijega smoothed her feathers nervously. "Very tricky. Much too tricky. Don't do it again."

Naruto laughed nervously again, and Ehetia became a female Abyssinian this time and licked her paw delicately. She was proud, that was plain.

"Where is your headband, Naruto?" Gijega asked sharply, her voice an unexpected trill on the air. "You're supposed to be wearing it." It was not often that the swan spoke to those other than her human. As a former teacher, she was accustomed to it, but she had stopped once her students had left her. Now she only spoke when Sarutobi was too shocked or embarrassed to continue for her, or when there was something important that she herself wanted to say, to make it clear.

"Oh," Naruto said, fixing the goggles that were set firmly in place on his forehead, "I'm not putting it on until the orientation. I don't wanna mess it up."

"So you want your headband to look nice," Sarutobi said, leading in from Gijega's question, "but your photo, which is supposed to identify you as a ninja, makes you look like a clown. It's for ninja training and missions, which is the key to your future. Look at this picture," he continued, pointing. "You can't even tell who it is."

_Though yes, you can,_ he thought secretly. _Ehetia's eyes are those of the nine-tails. Anyone can see that. Even now, in her Abyssinian form, her pupils are slitted and the irises are red._

"Well, fine!" Naruto said loudly. "How am I supposed to know all this complicated stuff anyway?"

Gijega's head turned slightly then to look toward the door. It was a furtive move, one that neither Naruto or Ehetia noticed, and she made it look like she was preening her feathers again when in reality her bright, keen eyes were looking at the shadow beneath the door crack.

Suddenly the door flew open, and there stood a young child not more than nine years old, his red ermine daemon standing at his ankle with her back arched threateningly. He held a shuriken in one hand and wore some unassuming clothing, but the look on his face was one of sheer determination and absolute vigor.

"Old man!" he shouted, holding the shuriken aloft. "We challenge you!" He and his daemon ran forward, his daemon spitting almost like a snake, before the child tripped on his ridiculously long scarf and landed flat on his nose. His daemon recoiled and cringed, pawing at her nose, while the child picked himself up and hiccuped, trying to hold back the tears.

"Our grandson," Gijega said to Sarutobi so that only he would understand, "another headache."

Another intruder barged in then: a man in a navy shirt and pants with the sleeves of the shirt rolled up, wearing his headband like a bandana. He wore round, dark glasses, and his coydog daemon looked commanding and submissive at the same time.

"Something tripped me!" the boy whined, grabbing his daemon and hugging her to his chest.

The coydog whined too, taking a few steps forward tentatively, and then a few steps back.

"A-are you okay, Honorable Grandson?" the man in the doorway stammered. "And by the way, there's nothing here for you to trip on—it's pretty flat."

Ehetia changed her form to be the most vexing and jealousy-invoking form she could: a beautiful red fox, the paws and legs splashed black, the front washed white, and the tail long and bushy and ending with a white tip. She wrapped herself around Naruto's legs protectively, looking at the child curiously with her slitted red Kyuubi eyes.

The man in the doorway turned to see Naruto, and he seemed shocked—his coydog let out a low growl.

"All right," the boy threatened, pointing a finger and Naruto as he stormed up. He nearly stepped on Ehetia's tail, but she sidestepped out of the way. "You're the one that tripped me, aren't you?" His daemon had become a wildcat, and was hissing at Ehetia, who was growling lightly back.

Naruto, annoyed, stood and grabbed the boy by the scarf. He said, "You tripped over your own feet, kid!" Ehetia curled her lip and showed her little fangs to the wildcat, who seemed unfazed.

"Hey, you!" the man in the doorway (who had now left the doorway and was standing in front of Sarutobi) shouted. "Take your hands off of him, right now! He's the Honorable Grandson of the Honorable Third Hokage!"

Naruto looked up at the man idly, uninterested but caught slightly by the sound of his voice. Ehetia let her curled lip fall and regarded the small wildcat with a steely eye. Then Naruto looked long and hard at the boy. He noticed he was missing a tooth.

"What's the matter, huh? I thought you were gonna hit me, tough guy!" the boy snapped. "Afraid 'cause the Third Hokage's my grandfather?"

Naruto and Ehetia both flared up at this—Ehetia launched forward and grabbed the cat by the scruff, shaking her from side to side while Naruto shouted, "I don't care if he's your grand_mother_!" and punched the boy's head.

Ehetia released the boy's daemon as the boy fell, limp, to the ground. The wildcat stumbled for a bit before collapsing beside her human.

The man that had followed the boy seemed absolutely shocked. He didn't quite know what to do with his hands—they were hovering in front of him while his mouth hung slack, and his coydog daemon put a paw over her long muzzle.

"This isn't looking good," Gijega muttered into Sarutobi's ear. Sarutobi knit his fingers together and rested his chin in the basket they created.

---

"Listen carefully," the man said to the boy after he had woken up. "You are the Honorable Grandson of the Honorable Third Hokage. You cannot let riffraff like this draw you into a fight, even though he _deserves it_. You see, he's far beneath you. You mustn't stoop to his level. As your elite ninja trainer, I am never wrong which means I am always right. I'm far above the other trainers, so heed my every word.

"Your goal," the man continued while his daemon sat at the ready, "is to become the next Hokage, and I can teach you the best way to do it. Indeed, with my great skill, I can take you quickly and easily to the top, but you must stay close to me. You understand me? Right, Honorable Grandson?"

But while the man had turned away, and while his daemon was enthralled by his proclamations of self-love, the boy had slipped away and was nowhere to be seen.

"Where'd he go now?" the man shouted. His coydog jumped up from her sit, barking smartly.

"I think he followed Naruto," Sarutobi said, "but I have no idea where they're going."

"He's with Naruto?" the man said, thoroughly in a panic. "That's a disaster!" He and his coydog ran from the room.

Sarutobi and Gijega sighed in unison. "How did he grow up to be like _that_?" the swan asked tiredly. "Our grandson's quite determined. That was his twentieth sneak attack today. And if he starts running around with Naruto, he's sure to get even worse."

"Naruto wouldn't teach him anything _really _bad, would he?" Sarutobi asked slowly.

"I hope not," Gijega muttered.

---

Naruto and Ehetia had snuck out during the odd man's explanation of judgement and skill, and now were walking along a wide alleyway. The birds hummed thoughtfully and Ehetia was still in her fox form, her bushy tail swinging behind her as she went.

People often stared at her because no matter how much she changed, Ehetia's eyes were always the same. Naruto saw no problem in them—he thought them quite beautiful—but when one from Konoha sees a fox with unnaturally slitted eyes that gleam as red as blood, they instantaneously think of the nine-tails, and Naruto understood that now, knowing who he was. Still, it didn't bother him, and it wouldn't stop him from his goals.

Suddenly, though, Ehetia heard a noise, and her ear flicked. Naruto stopped, sensing the same thing she had, and he looked up. Turning around, Naruto saw the boy from before poorly trying to conceal himself underneath what looked like a tan tablecloth. Unfortunately, his raccoon daemon's tail was peeking out, striped gray and black.

"We should ignore him," Ehetia said. Naruto nodded and followed her onward. He could distinctly hear the boy throwing off his cloth and following him with loud, clumsy steps. Doubtless he would trip over that ridiculous scarf of his again...

Annoyed after a few minutes, Naruto whirled around with an accusatory finger and said, "I know you're following me, so just give it up." He sighed when he saw the boy's new hiding place. His daemon had smartly become an unassuming moth (unassuming except for the fact that it was high noon), but the boy's fence-designed cloth that Naruto was so used to using was held so that the stripes went horizontally rather than vertically, and his ponytail and feet stuck out from over the top and beneath it.

"That's so obvious, it's pathetic," Naruto said, quivering with barely suppressed anger.

The boy laughed and pulled down his cloth. "Saw through my disguise, huh?" he asked. "The rumors about you are true—you're good!" He came up to Naruto, his daemon as a raccoon again clinging to his shoulder, and pointed to the older boy's face. "All right," he said. "I'll be your apprentice and you'll be my trainer."

"What?" Naruto asked. Ehetia snorted as though she had some dust up her nose.

"And afterwards," the boy continued desperately, "you gotta show me that sexy jutsu thing you used on Grandpa Hokage!"

"This is some kind of joke, isn't it?" Naruto asked, turning away.

"No!" the boy whined. "I need a new trainer! Please, Boss?" His raccoon daemon yipped her agreement.

"What?" Naruto asked. "Boss?"

"Yeah!" the boy said. "You're the boss! Boss, Boss, Boss!"

"Well," Naruto said, "how can I refuse?"

---

In a busier part of town, Naruto and Ehetia led the boy and his daemon down the street.

"You wanna be a master ninja?" Naruto asked accusingly. "Then you gotta learn to control your catra."

"Your catra?" the boy asked. His daemon turned into a fat blonde tabby to express their shared confusion.

"I said your catra," Naruto said in a commanding tone. Ehetia yipped excitedly.

"Boss," the boy said, "I think you're talking about chakra."

"Don't question me," Naruto snapped. "Real ninja say 'catra.'"

"Really?" the boy asked excitedly. "I didn't know that—that's cool!"

"He believes anything you say," Ehetia laughed so that only Naruto would understand her. He nodded briskly.

"Listen," Naruto said to the boy. "I'll explain what chakra is."

But the boy interrupted. "Chakra," he explained, "is the elemental life-energy that is used to perform jutsu. Like blood. Or Dust. The ninja arts combine physical energy from each cell in the body with mystical energy which is intensified through training and experience. When these two chakra mix, special hand signs allow the ninja to focus this combined energy through himself and his daemon for advanced jutsu."

But the boy had pulled out a scroll and was merely reading a dictionary definition. Naruto slapped the scroll away.

"You can blab all you want about how to do ninja techniques," he said with his hands on his hips, "but it really comes down to one thing."

"What is it?" the boy asked.

"Just plain hard work and guts," Naruto said simply.

"Okay, I'm with you!" the boy shouted.

"All right," Naruto said. "I'm gonna throw some really big challenges at you now. Are you ready?"

"Ready, Boss!" the boy said.

"Good. Then let's do it—show me a transformation. Show me what you can do and I'll take you to the next level."

"All right, sure," the boy said. "But what do I transform into?"

Glancing around for a few minutes, Naruto quickly spied a petite young woman in a purple kimono with a brown thrush as her daemon. "Transform into her," Naruto said, pointing.

"No problem!" the boy said. "Here I go, Boss!" Performing the appropriate seals, the boy let his chakra flow throughout himself and his daemon. The Dust writhed within his daemon's body as the chakra surged, and then there was a great cloud of smoke. "Well?" he asked when the smoke had cleared. "Do I look like her?" His voice was impossibly masculine; the petite frame that Naruto had specified was bulged like a balloon, and the thrush was missing some of its tail feathers.

"The clothes... kinda look like her," Naruto said slowly, unsure of what to say. The woman was behind him now, curious because of the commotion, and she raised her fist angrily.

"_That_ looks like me?" she screeched, punching Naruto hard on the head. Ehetia yelped and jumped, and the thrush twittered reprovingly.

"Now, now, Honorable Grandson," the woman said, waving her finger at the boy. "Next time you transform into me, make me a little cuter, okay? Buh-bye." She waved and left, her thrush daemon flitting around her head like a fly.

"She's scary," the boy's daemon said, quivering as a raccoon on his shoulder.

"You did it," Naruto moaned. "Why am I the one that gets whacked around?"

---

They stood in front of a small green-plastered shop, looking up in appreciation. Naruto knew full well what lay within. He liked the girls and Ehetia liked their daemons—it was an easy win-win.

"All right," Naruto said, rubbing the lump on the back of his head. "Since your last attempt all but failed, we're going to do some research on female beauty."

"Right!" the boy said excitedly.

The inside of the small shop was dusty and dim. The storekeeper and his rat daemon both were sleeping soundly behind the counter. Naruto creaked the door in and allowed the boy and his daemon to step inside first. He himself and Ehetia came afterwards, not bothering to shut the door behind them. They all crept across to the back of the small shop to a small rack where magazines with pretty girls and their daemons were printed on the covers. Ehetia stared longingly at one picture of a male fox daemon, luxuriously curled around his human's neck. She noted with a trace of annoyance that his eyes were a normal fox's brown, and narrowed her own hatefully.

Naruto picked her magazine of choice out of the rack and flipped it open so that the boy could see. The pictures were astounding: there were girls with flat stomachs and large breasts with impossibly handsome daemons dancing around them like mist. There were swimsuits and underwear that barely covered the girls' privates, and some wore nothing at all.

There was a rude awakening for all four of them then—the storekeeper had woken up, and his rat daemon was sitting on his shoulder looking as though she was about to have a cow. Her human was tapping a switch against his back, and he growled, "This is not a library, Naruto!"

Apparently Naruto had been caught here before, and now, like all the other times, he was going to pay for his lecherous, immature ways.

---

Naruto's back was stinging from the swats the man had given him with his switch, but he was undeterred. He led the boy to the training locker rooms and said, "This is the last stop, so give it everything you got, understand?"

The boy nodded and swept his hands to form the seals at the same time Naruto did to perform a transformation.

It was the only time Ehetia could actually hide her demonic eyes—she needed her human's chakra pulsing through her along with the Dust she was made of. She needed him to be someone else for a while so that she could be someone else's daemon. For this reason, her eyes became blue and soft when he transformed himself into a girl with high, long pigtails and she jumped into his arms as a large tabby cat.

The boy and his own daemon had no such luck transforming as swiftly or soundly as Naruto. Once again, the petite frame that was called for was bulged and round like a ball. The face was ill-proportioned, and the ermine that was also transformed through chakra and not Dust was just as fat and round, hardly able to move unless the boy was holding her. Of course, both daemons were now male for the time that their humans were female.

Looking the way they did, the two boys sauntered in to the ladies' locker room. For a few moments, there was silence. And then there was a ruckus that could only be compared to an animal stampede—at least twenty girls were screaming and raging, their daemons howling and snarling, sharing their rage, as they pounded on Naruto and chased him and the younger boy out. Ino and her caracal Heji were one of the main pursuers, and they most certainly left the most bruises.

"Why do they only hurt me?" Naruto asked a few minutes later, as he and the boy had escaped into the woods.

"Sorry," the boy said quietly. "It's because I'm the grandson of the Hokage." His daemon rested as a mouse in the palm of his hand, and she looked quite shamefaced and sad.

"Don't worry about it," Naruto said, noticing this. Had there been no taboo he would have reached out to stroke the little thing, but as the taboo had been instilled in his instincts since birth, the thought never even crossed his mind. "I've prepared you, so now you're ready to learn the sexy jutsu. You're just gonna need to practice."

There was a long pause, then the boy's daemon transformed into her raccoon shape and he said, "Practice! All right, Boss, let's do this!"

---

"Naruto..." the odd man's coydog growled under her breath as she and her human stood atop Sarutobi's monument on the Hokage Mountain. "What's he done with the Honorable Grandson? What's he up to? Where did they go?"

"We are a jounin," the odd man said, and he identified the both of them as one entity because his daemon was really part of him, his soul. "We are the elite, the trainers of future Hokage. This parasite that leeches on to our student will be squashed."

---

It was some time later that Naruto and the boy and their daemons sat on a log together, eating cup-ramen from a vending machine stall in the park a ways over.

"I gotta know," Naruto said after slurping up some noodles. "What's this obsession you've got with your grandfather?"

The boy looked away. "My grandfather named me Konohamaru," he said, and Naruto felt stupid for not asking his name earlier. "Gijega named my daemon Iegi. Since my name comes from the village's name, it should be easy to remember. But nobody calls me that—not one person. And they never address Iegi at all. That's 'cause when they look at us, they don't really see us. All they see is the Honorable Grandson of the Hokage-sama. No one knows who _I_ am.

"I can't stand it anymore," Konohamaru continued. "It's like I'm invisible; like I don't exist. I hate that. We both do. Sometimes, because of the way they treat us, it's almost like I don't even have Iegi with me. Like I don't have a daemon. That's why I've got to become the Hokage now, so people know who I am! I don't want to feel like I don't even have a daemon. It feels so wrong."

Naruto was silent for a moment. The idea of not having a daemon terrified him—about this, he was honest with himself. Really, if someone said they weren't scared of something like that, he would be afraid of _them_. Someone without a daemon was like someone without a head. Even the odd shinobi who had their daemon cut from them at some point in their life kept them remarkably close, because after someone gets cut from their daemon, their connection becomes thin. Those shinobi that lost that connection at some point were always working to gain it back lest they lose their soul. And instinctually, that was wrong.

But then Naruto drew himself away from those damned thoughts and returned himself to the idea that Konohamaru and Iegi wanted to become Hokage. How silly.

"Get real," he said at last, after a pause in which Ehetia crawled into his lap. "You think people are going to accept a squirt like you? A kid can't just turn into a Hokage after a day or two."

Konohamaru leapt up, Iegi a hissing ermine beside him. "What?" he shouted.

"It's not that simple," Naruto continued doggedly. "You keep saying 'Hokage, Hokage.' To really be a Hokage, you know what you'll have to do?"

"What?" Konohamaru asked again. "Whatever it is, I'll do it."

And then Naruto grinned, a fox-like grin which Ehetia shared, her eyes now reverted to their normal slitted blood reds, calmly as a fox once again. Naruto turned to look at Konohamaru, and Ehetia turned to look at Iegi, who had by now stopped hissing and was gazing fearfully into those gleaming red eyes.

"You're going to have to defeat us in battle," Naruto said, a fierce look in his eye.

The challenge had been made, and because of his promise, Konohamaru could no longer back down if he wanted to. He would fight for his whole life if only to be able to defeat Naruto—he would fight for the strength, the power to do so.

---

It was quiet beneath the Hokage faces as Sarutobi stood, Gijega at his side.

"Hokage-sama!" That was Iruka's voice. He appeared behind Sarutobi, Yideyu on his shoulder. Her wing was tightly bandaged after her run-in with Mizuki's lemur (both were now in prison), and, following suit, Iruka's was in a sling. "We've been looking for you."

"For what purpose?" Sarutobi asked, not bothering to turn around.

"It's about Naruto," Iruka said, coming to stand beside the old man. "Did he resubmit his ninja ID photo?"

Sarutobi grunted the affirmative.

"You know," Iruka laughed, "Yideyu and I gave him a long lecture the other night at Ichiraku's, but he's still beaming because he became a genin. He thinks that will change things, that people will stop looking down on him now."

Sarutobi's gaze was intense as he looked up at the Hokage Faces. Gijega twisted her neck slightly to look at Iruka out of the corner of her eye, but neither said anything as their concentration was on the Fourth.

Finally, Sarutobi said, "I fear his dream may not come true. People don't change that easily. Why do you think daemons settle into one form? Your crow daemon cannot become a swan daemon now that your personality is set by her in Dust."

"Oh?" Iruka asked.

"The nine-tailed fox is within him," Sarutobi continued. "You can see it in Ehetia's eyes, burning there. And whenever she's as a fox, its presence is so apparent that it's almost frightening. But not everyone knows that, of course. Not everyone looks at her eyes. Only those who fought the beast twelve years ago know what those eyes mean anyway.

"I decreed that no one could speak about this," he said. "Even those who whispered it were punished severely. So the children of today know nothing about Naruto's connection to the beast, or why it is so dangerous for Ehetia to choose to settle as a fox. As long as the children are unaware of this, Naruto has some hope of being accepted. That was the wish of his father, the Fourth Hokage.

"Before he sacrificed himself to save us, he asked that when Naruto grew up, he should be regarded as a hero."

Gijega had turned away now, and had stretched her neck out as though to reach for the precious Fourth above her.

"A hero?" Iruka asked.

"The Fourth Hokage defeated the fox by sealing its spirit within a newborn baby—his baby," Sarutobi explained. "His umbilical cord had just been cut. I doubt Naruto fully understands that the tattoo on his stomach is the seal for the fox. But by containing the spirit within his tiny body, Naruto saved the village. That's why he is a hero.

"Unfortunately, many of the villagers don't understand this. People are driven by fear. They think the beast could kill Ehetia and take over Naruto's body—no, they think he _is_ the beast now, and their children feel their fear and hatred, and they turn against Naruto as well." Sarutobi stopped, and Gijega retracted her head and continued for him.

"Do you know what the Ancients said about such things, Iruka?" she asked softly.

"What's that, Gijega-sama?" Iruka asked.

"When the people reject someone's very existence, and then they look at that person, their eyes become cold, and their daemons become colder. Cold as an ice storm in the deepest winter, or colder still."

---

The odd man and his coydog daemon leaped through the trees, still searching frantically for Konohamaru and Iegi. The coydog stopped on a branch a few yards away from her human and barked angrily, "I found you!"

Both boys and their daemons turned to look up at her as the odd man joined her on her perch.

The coydog let out a low growl as she gazed at Ehetia's fox form, one that to the odd man said, "Look at her. It's disgusting. She takes the shape of the nine-tails."

The odd man gazed down coldly at Naruto and Ehetia.

Ehetia let out a growl of her own. To Naruto, she said, "They all look at us that way!" It made her angry and sad, and the turmoil of feelings inside of her sometimes made her sick, because Naruto felt them as well and added to them, making them twofold.

The odd man leapt down, his coydog beside him. "So, Honorable Grandson," he said, his voice hard. "Time to go home."

"No way!" Konohamaru snapped, almost before the odd man could finish. "Me and Iegi are learning how to beat my grandfather so I can get the title 'Hokage!' Now, don't get in our way!"

"Hokage is more than just a fighter," the odd man said, walking forward coolly. "He must know virtue, honor, fortitude. He must be skilled beyond measure, and his daemon must be the most beautiful and pure thing there is. You don't even know one jutsu, and look at your daemon. A stoat is not a viable daemon for a Hokage."

"She's not a stoat, she's an ermine!" Konohamaru shouted. His hands swept together to form the transformation seal, and he sent a pulse of chakra surging down through his connection with Iegi. He sent it flowing into her body and it reverberated back to his.

"Transform!"

The rush of chakra and Dust made the odd man and his coydog daemon stop in their tracks.

"Hi there. Like my jutsu?" The voice was tantalizingly feminine, and the urging growl was coming from a sleek and powerful male panther curled protectively around the woman's legs. She was curvy, delicate, fine. He was deliciously sculpted, and added to her valuer.

The odd man's face went red, and he screamed. His coydog raced around in a circle about his legs, whimpering and shouting.

"Hey, he's not defeated!" Konohamaru pouted, returning to normal. His now female raccoon daemon leaped up onto his shoulder.

"What... What kind of scandalous technique is that?" the odd man shouted, hands quivering. His daemon jumped and howled her disapproval. "Such tasteless vulgarity can never influence me! I am far above it!" He grabbed on to Konohamaru's scarf and began pulling in the direction of the village. "Honorable Grandson, stop this!" he ordered. "Right now!" His coydog was busy trying to capture Iegi in her mouth, but the raccoon had changed into an ermine again, and was dodging every swipe the coydog sent her.

"Naruto's turning you into a delinquent!" the odd man continued. "Only my special training can put you on the fast track to becoming the Hokage!"

"Leave me alone!" Konohamaru shouted, pulling in vain against the scarf.

"Shadow clone jutsu!"

And suddenly there were a thousand Narutos and a thousand Ehetias, all ready and willing to fight.

Konohamaru could only stare in shock as Iegi jumped up onto his shoulder, a raccoon once again.

"I'm not impressed," the odd man said pretentiously. "I'm a jounin, an elite ninja warrior. I'm not some lightweight like Mizuki." He stepped forward, and his coydog came to back him, baring her teeth in a vicious snarl.

_The dog in her must be something strong, like a shepherd!_ Naruto thought as the two advanced.

"Watch," the odd man was saying, "how a real ninja defeats an upstart."

The Narutos and Ehetias readied themselves for the attack, determined and knowing full well that they could defeat this man.

The odd man lowered himself into an offensive-defensive stance, and his daemon did the same, lowering her throat to the ground but lowering her hind legs as well, ready to spring.

"Transform!" one Naruto said, and the thousand Narutos and Ehetias transformed with him, into their sleek womanly shapes and Abyssinian forms. The women latched on to the odd man, and the male Abyssinians latched on to the coydog. The odd man and his daemon fell twitching to the ground.

"Gotcha," Naruto said, dismissing his clones. "That was my harem jutsu."

---

It was late afternoon now, and the sun was just starting its trek toward the horizon. Konoharmu said angrily, "Oh, I couldn't even beat that stupid trainer of mine! I want to be Hokage so bad but I keep messing up! Why can't I do it?"

"You really think it's that easy?" Naruto asked, perturbed. "To be the Hokage, you have to be the greatest of all ninja, and have the most beautiful, awesome daemon there is. You have to prove yourself so everyone believes in you. Look at me. I've been through a lot already with Ehetia. We've been ignored, pushed away, and treated like we were nothing, not even Dust. And after all that, we found one person and their daemon who believes in us. To find that one person, we had to get knocked down a lot. So you better make sure that you're ready."

"For what?" Konohamaru asked.

Naruto turned away, and Ehetia leaped up into his arms. "For lots of things," he said. "Sweat. Tears. Blood. Dust. While you're learning to be a ninja."

A coarse breeze whipped through the forest, stirring the leaves and branches high above and ripping green from their stems, sending them fluttering down to the forest floor.

Naruto and Ehetia turned around again and smiled. "By the way," Naruto said, "there is no easy way to becoming Hokage."

But Konohamaru turned away, and Iegi turned her raccoon tail up as an insult to Naruto and Ehetia. "Ha!" Konohamaru said. "Who do you think you are, giving me a big lecture like that? That's it—I'm not going to be your apprentice anymore." He turned around again to face Naruto. "From now on, we're rivals." He smiled, showing that missing tooth of his that was somehow cute and winning at the same time, and Naruto smiled back. Ehetia panted her laughter, and Iegi squeaked hers.

"I can't be your trainer anyway," Naruto said quickly. "Tomorrow I start my advanced ninja studies. But I accept your challenge, and someday we'll fight for the title of Hokage-sama. So let's all look forward to that day, Konohamaru and Iegi."

The fact that Naruto accepted his challenge was not what moved Konohamaru and Iegi so completely—it was the fact that he'd noticed them, the fact that he'd said their names, that he'd acknowledged Iegi at all and that he'd called Konohamaru by his proper name. And while they both stared after the older boy quietly, he turned and walked away with his fox daemon balanced on both his shoulders. He raised his hand and she moved her tail slightly to allow him a small wave before dropping his arm back down.

Konohamaru saluted smartly, straightening himself so that he stood tall.


	3. Sasuke, Digadi, Sakura, and Igesu

A/N: All right, now we get into some more non-canon stuff. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or His Dark Materials.

**Soul Wounds Trilogy  
****Book One  
****The Boy with Two Daemons**

**Chapter Three  
****Sasuke, Digadi, Sakura, and Igesu: Friends or Foes?**

The day was bright, but just barely warm enough to go without a jacket—some daemons with thin fur were hiding in the shirts of their humans, while others paced along proudly at their sides or sat atop their heads or shoulders.

Naruto was just waking up, with Ehetia stretching out her long martin body next to him, her little mouth open in the largest yawn her form could procure. Naruto picked her up in his arms, tossed his nightcap to the side, and got up out of bed, heading for the calendar. The fifteenth was circled in bright red marker.

"Today's the day!" Ehetia said excitedly, coming out of her sleep-induced stupor.

A wide grin fell across Naruto's face. "Yeah," he said. "Time to get ready!"

Breakfast was ramen and milk for him—Ehetia, being a daemon nourished by her human's own health, ate nothing, but merely washed herself.

"What form should I choose for today for the orientation?" she asked, standing in front of a low-down mirror and cycling through several different options. "I could be a martin, an eagle, or a fox, or I could be something else."

"I like your fox form best, personally," Naruto said through a mouthful of noodles. "It'd be cool if you settled that way."

"Is that a hint?" Ehethia asked, becoming her fox form and leaping up onto the table. "Grow up," she ordered, "and I"ll settle."

Naruto laughed. "You'll settle when you're ready," he said, and chugged down some of the milk.

After breakfast, Naruto got dressed and placed his goggles on his head as usual. "Why are you putting _those_ on?" Ehetia asked smartly, picking his headband up in her mouth so that it caught the light. "You should be wearing _this_, Mr. Ninja."

Naruto smiled and took the headband from her. "Yeah, you're right!" he said brightly, and tied it around his forehead.

---

A few minutes later, Naruto and Ehetia were walking down the street toward the academy. Ehetia sighed when she noticed the horizontally-marked cloth that signified Konohamaru and Iegi failing at their attempts to hide.

When Naruto got close enough, both boy and daemon jumped out from behind the cloth, Konohamaru shouting, "You're mine, Naruto!" But, as was normal, it seemed, Konohamaru tripped on the cloth and fell flat on his face. Iegi yelped and rubbed her nose with her raccoon paws, thumping her human angrily with her tail.

"What are you doing, Konohamaru?" Naruto asked.

"That was a slick move," Konohamaru said, still lying flat on his face. His daemon had stopped hitting him with her tail by now. "That's why I respect you as a rival." He got up on his hands and knees and then stood. Naruto was impressed by the fact that the boy didn't cry this time.

There was a short pause before Naruto said, "But I didn't do anything."

Konohamaru readied his hands for a seal. "All right," he said. "Now fight us fair and square!"

Naruto rubbed the back of his head apologetically. "Sorry," he said, "but me and Ehetia've got an orientation to go to."

"Orientation?" Konohamaru asked.

"Yep," Naruto said. Ehetia barked from his shoulder. "As of today, I'm a ninja." He pointed to his headband and drew pleasure from the look of astonishment and admiration on Konohamaru's face. Naruto grinned and laughed a bit.

---

Sakura stood in front of a mirror in her room, pulling her hair back with her new headband while her hare daemon, Igesu, sat beside her on the footstool, sitting upright and watching her.

"How do I look, lovebird?" she asked her daemon affectionately.

"Do you have to call me that?" the hare moaned, pulling his paws over his ears so that his eyes were covered. "Just call me Igesu, like you're supposed to. And anyway, you look fine."

Sakura rolled her eyes and rubbed her daemon's head. "Fine, thanks, Igesu," she said sarcastically.

"Sakura!" her mother called suddenly from downstairs. "Isn't it time for you to get going?"

Sakura sighed. "I know!" she said angrily. "I'm on my way out now!"

"How long is she going to treat us like a kid?" Igesu asked, flicking his ears in an annoyed way. "Even though I'm not settled yet, we're a ninja now!"

---

Now the two of them walked down the street toward the academy, Igesu as a bobcat pacing along beside Sakura.

"We're not a little academy student anymore," he was saying. "We're a ninja. Haruno Sakura—kunoichi, with the help of her wonderful daemon Igesu, of course." He bumped her leg playfully with his side, and her hand fell automatically to scratch that special place along his neck. His eyes slitted in pleasure.

"See you later!" That was Ino's voice, coming from the flower shop. Heji, as a caracal (even though he wasn't settled he liked to pretend that he was and often chose this form), padded alongside her as she left through the front way.

She turned and looked to see Sakura and Igesu. Heji stiffened beside her. "Good morning, Sakura, Igesu," she said with an arched eyebrow.

"Good morning, Ino, Heji," Sakura replied, and stepped forward. The two girls and their daemons began walking together, though the daemons didn't have the type of rivalry their humans did between them.

"So they actually let _you_ graduate?" Ino asked scathingly. "What a surprise."

"Those classes are ancient history," Sakura said. "We're both ninja now, and we're both equal. I won't lose to you anymore." With those words, Igesu changed himself into a startlingly red jaguarundi, holding his head proudly and waving his rudder-like tail from side to side.

In response, Heji changed from a caracal to an Asiatic golden cat, twice the size now of Igesu and quite a bit stronger in build.

Igesu changed again, but he was not trying to be larger, merely a more specified, beautiful cat. Why a cat, he didn't know, but since Heji enjoyed the feline shape so much, he felt it would be fun to beat the daemon at his own game. He didn't even particularly care that much—it was his human what wanted him to change, so he did, into an oncilla. Slightly smaller than his jaguarundi form, his oncilla form was nonetheless beautiful and exotic, and Heji was eager to play the game.

But it seemed as though Igesu was wrong—Heji wasn't interested in cycling through cat forms. A fossa was what came next for him, and Igesu allowed himself to continue the game as well, all the way until they reached the academy. It was both a fun and frustrating game, because it was Sakura's and Ino's wills that drove it, but there was no clear winner, and they entered the classroom with Igesu as a fishing genet and Heji back to his normal caracal.

Naruto was sitting at his desk, playing with Ehetia's ears, when a boy named Shikamaru passed him, his blackbird daemon Egyasen on his shoulder. He seemed surprised to see Naruto and Ehetia there, and turned to them incredulously.

"What are you doing here, Naruto?" Shikamaru asked. "This isn't for dropouts—you can't be here unless you graduated."

Naruto flared up and said, "Oh yeah, Shikamaru? Do you see this headband? It's regulation. We're gonna be training together—how do you like that?"

Shikamaru didn't answer.

From over in her corner, watching Naruto, a girl named Hinata sat withdrawn with her mouse daemon Hedega in the crook of her arm. "So Naruto graduated after all?" Hedega whispered. "That's a relief."

Sakura, Igesu, Ino, and Heji had entered the classroom at this point, and Naruto looked up to see the pink haired kunoichi with her fishing genet. Ehetia was eyeing Igesu dreamily, the way he was colored like a fox but in the shape of a genet. It was widely known that Igesu's greatest skill was changing and merely being beautiful—many wondered what he would settle into, or if he would settle at all.

But Sakura had no eyes for Naruto. She was staring at the boy next to him—Sasuke, was his name—and his serval daemon Digadi. Digadi had already settled, and while no one knew why, many of the students were jealous for her long legs and slim, specialized body. Igesu changed himself into a serval, perhaps to impress her, while Sakura charged over, shoving Naruto out of the way.

"Hi, Sasuke," Sakura said timidly, and while the boy paid no attention, Digadi greeted Igesu with a polite sniff to the nose. "Mind if I sit next to you?"

"Back off, Forehead," Ino said, grabbing Sakura by the arm. Heji was also a serval now, and leaped upon the table, hissing at Igesu. Igesu, forgetting his serval form, changed into a small clouded leopard and arched his back angrily.

Other girls began crowding around, vying for the seat next to Sasuke and Digadi. Some of their daemons were birds, some were canines, but none really joined the confrontation between Heji and Igesu—Heji was blinking and backing away with each spit Igesu threw at him—watching them instead for weaknesses.

Digadi leaned on Sasuke's shoulder. "Clueless," she muttered to him, and he nodded his agreement.

---

The lot of them leaned over the crystal ball: Sarutobi and Gijega, Hatake Kakashi and his heavily scarred puma daemon Hiye, along with the other instructors and their own daemons. Among them were Yuhi Kurenai and her mussurana daemon Yee, and Sarutobi Asuma with his wolverine daemon Eyegdu.

"Most promising student Uchiha Sasuke," Kakashi mused.

"His daemon Digadi looks weak," Hiye commented. Her voice was raspy, as though she'd had her throat torn before and it had never completely healed. Indeed, scars at least a foot long and as wide as a finger marred her neck, face, back, and sides like patchwork, striping her ash-gray pelt like a tiger, almost.

"Yes, he's the one," Sarutobi said. "And you know what happened to him, Hiye, to make her that weak."

"Yes," the puma said, flicking a torn ear apologetically. She turned her head to see the crystal out of her good eye—her left eye, with a deep, deep scar over it, was clouded with blindness, and her torn ear, the left one, was half deaf, but everyone respected her as one of the most powerful daemons in the village simply because of her experience, and what she went through to obtain such scars.

"He's the only survivor left from the Uchiha clan," Kurenai said. Yee had himself coiled around her upper arm, his dark gray head hovering near her own.

"That's right," Sarutobi confirmed.

"Uzumaki Naruto, huh?" Kakashi asked when the image changed to focus on the boy and Ehetia, who was still as a fox. "His daemon takes the shape of the nine-tails."

"Ehetia, I believe she's called," Hiye said. "The Kyuubi's chakra does this to her, Hokage-sama?" The puma's good eye darted up to see Sarutobi, who was nodding. "What happens if she settles in such a form?"

"The nine-tails has a better chance of killing her," Sarutobi said with a sigh. "She becomes a channel for its chakra."

A rumble deep in Hiye's chest signified her low growl of displeasure at this fact, and Kakashi placed a hand calmly on her head, tracing a scar there with his finger.

---

Thrown back against the sides of one of the desks, Naruto felt his anger rise, and felt Ehetia's fur prickle beneath his hand as her hackles rose. He went to stand in front of Sasuke on top of the desk, crouching there. Ehetia was glaring at Digadi, who had her large ears turned forward in interest.

Sasuke looked up at Naruto, who was not more than an inch from his face, as Digadi studied Ehetia's odd eyes. The slitted pupils of a house cat who was staring straight into the sun, but irises the color of the brightest blood... yes, odd was the word for them.

"Naruto, stop glaring at Sasuke!" Sakura shouted angrily. Igesu was still crouched in his clouded leopard form, and he turned now to hiss openly at Naruto.

"Why are they so obsessed with your human?" Ehetia asked Digadi curiously.

"How should I know?" the serval hissed, and Ehetia was slightly surprised by her anger. "Do you think we like it?" She glared pointedly at the chattering girls and their daemons. Ehetia barked her laughter.

"Do you know what _we_ wouldn't give for that kind of attention?" she asked the serval, who stiffened.

"I don't care," Digadi snapped, and, frowning now, Ehetia backed away.

From behind Naruto, a boy reached back with his elbow and bumped him by accident, sending him forward. Ehetia and Digadi both watched in horror, along with the girls and their daemons, as the boys' lips practically fell on top of each other.

Ehetia started and became a pine martin almost instantly, hiding her face behind the bush of her tail in embarrassment and shame, and Digadi pulled her face and ears back in a hiss.

The chatter stopped, and all eyes were on the awkward scene for the long seconds that it took for the boys to part. As soon as it was done, Sakura screamed and Igesu leaped into the air at the noise, flying to her as a sparrow so she could clutch him to her breast as a hare.

Naruto and Sasuke managed to release each other and held their throats in agony and disgust.

"Naruto!" Ehetia yelped, jumping up. Naruto turned to see where she was staring—an angry _mob_ of girls and their daemons were staring him down, the daemons eyeing Ehetia, who had lowered herself piteously before them.

"It was an accident!" Naruto said, holding his hands up.

Sakura cracked her knuckles.

---

"As of today," Iruka said, Yideyu on his shoulder. His arm was still in a sling—Yideyu had dislocated it again trying to fly, and it was now rumored around the school that she was scheduled for a surgery to reinforce the socket. Naruto was worried for his sensei, of course, despite Iruka's frequent attempts to stop that. "You are all ninja. To get here, you faced difficult trials and hardships. But that's nothing. What comes next will be far more difficult. Now you are only genin. All the genin will be grouped into three-man squads."

Yideyu laughed a bit as she looked at Naruto, who was bruised and battered but otherwise unharmed from the girls' attack on him. Ehetia lay beside him as a fox, licking his face.

"Each squad will be led by a jounin," Iruka continued, ignoring his daemon.

"You hear that, Sakura?" Igesu asked, a hare now. "A three-man squad."

"Well," Ino said from behind her, "someone's gotta be in Sasuke's group. I wonder who."

"I dunno," Sakura said nonchalantly.

"Groups of three will only slow us down," Digadi hissed next to her own human.

"I hope it's not that Sasuke-bastard," Ehetia growled, glaring out of the corner of her eye at Digadi.

"We want each squad to have a balance of strengths and abilities, so that's how we set them up," Iruka was saying. "I will now announce the squads. Squad Seven: Uzumaki Naruto and Ehetia. Haruno Sakura and Igesu. Uchiha Sasuke and Digadi.

"Next, Squad Eight: Hyuuga Hinata and Hedega. Inuzuka Kiba and Akamaru. Aburame Shino and Degg.

"Now Squad Ten: Yamanaka Ino and Heji. Nara Shikamaru and Egyasen. Akimichi Chouji and Pegdess. Those are all the squads."

Naruto stood up angrily, pointing to Sasuke. "Iruka-sensei!" he said. "Why does a great ninja like me have to be in the same group with a slug like Sasuke?"

Iruka looked up, but it was Yideyu who spoke. Though she was a teacher, she rarely spoke, as Iruka's duties were much less hands-on than field-work. "Sasuke's were the best scores in the graduating class," she cawed. "Naruto, you had the worst scores."

The class laughed.

"To create a balanced group, we put the best student with the worst student."

"Just make sure you don't get in my way, loser," Sasuke growled from where he sat.

Naruto turned to him. "Hey, what was that?" he snapped.

"Hard of hearing?" Sasuke asked blandly, and the class laughed again.

"Knock it off, Naruto, sit down!" Sakura ordered, and Igesu glared at Ehetia reproachfully. His bright green eyes intimidated her, and she narrowed hers and lay down.

"After lunch, you'll meet your new jounin teachers," Iruka continued, heedless of what was going on. "Until then, class dismissed."

---

Outside, it was nearly noon, and Igesu, as a bobcat, was going around with Sakura searching for Sasuke. She was calling for him in that desperate sort of way when a mother is looking for her child.

"Why did he go running off so fast?" she asked.

"Who knows?" Igesu said, licking his paw and running it over his head.

"Since we're in the same group and all, I thought we could have lunch together and get to know each other."

"We'll find him," Igesu said placatingly. "Don't worry about it. We have the next few years to get to know each other, right?"

"I guess," Sakura said.

"Hey, Sakura!" It was Naruto. Ehetia was sitting around his shoulders as a fox. "Since we were in the same group, I thought we could have lunch together and get to know each other."

"Why would I eat lunch with you?" Sakura snapped. "How could that thought even go through your head?"

"But we're in the same group," Naruto interjected, "so I just thought..."

"Naruto," Sakura said, "you're annoying." Then she turned away and proceeded to search for Sasuke. Igesu padded along at her heels.

"Don't worry about _her_," Ehetia growled. "She's hateful, just like all the others."

Naruto sighed.

---

They sat atop the water tower now, Naruto and Ehetia.

"What a pain," Naruto said. "I finally get into the same group as Sakura, and _he's _gotta be in it too."

"His daemon's a bitch," Ehetia snarled.

"There's got to be a way to deal with this," Naruto said.

Then there was a sound. Looking up, Naruto noticed Sasuke eating his lunch just inside a window across the way. Digadi was sitting on the window sill, washing her leg.

"I've got a plan!" Naruto hissed, and began whispering into his daemon's ear.

---

So it came that Sakura sat alone on a stone bench, eating her lunch from a bento box. Igesu lay beside her on his side with his bobcat head resting on her knee, enjoying the breeze that fanned his fur.

"I told you, there's no rush," he said lazily. "You'll be in the same group as Sasuke for a long time."

"Still," she said sadly, rubbing his side lightly. "How could he ever like me? Let's face it—I'm scrawny and small, except for my forehead. Why was I born with such a big wide forehead?"

Igesu chuckled softly and licked her knee with his grating tongue. "What am I, chopped liver?" he asked. "Don't worry, Sakura, I'll help you win him over."

"Thanks, Igesu," Sakura said brightly, and she leaned over to kiss his shoulder and bury her nose in his warm fur.

It was then that she noticed, with great embarrassment, that Sasuke was standing across the cobbled street, leaning against a tree with Digadi sitting beside him. His arms were crossed and he was smiling.

But Sakura sighed and rested her elbows on her knees, forcing Igesu to move his head and sit up. He yawned, not really caring that Sasuke was there, then stretched, digging his claws into the bench with an audible scratching noise. Shaking himself out, he became a jaguarundi and lay back down, this time with his head hanging over the bench's edge.

"Sakura," Sasuke said, and he sounded much closer than he looked, "your forehead is so wide and charming, it makes me feel like kissing it."

Igesu looked up sharply with interest at Sasuke, then at Digadi beside him. "Is this for real?" he asked in the language of the daemons, but Digadi said nothing.

"Just kidding," Sasuke said, as if in answer to Igesu's question. "That's the kind of dumb thing Naruto would say."

Sakura sighed.

"I wanna ask you something," Sasuke continued, sitting down next to her. "What do you think of him, anyway? Naruto, I mean."

"He knows about my feelings," Sakura replied, "and he purposefully tries to get in the way. He enjoys interfering and making me feel bad. Naruto doesn't understand one single thing about me or Igesu. He and that Ehetia of his are just annoying." And then she became slightly meek, lowering her voice into a high-pitched whisper. "All I want is for you to accept me Sasuke, that's all."

"You just want me to accept you?" Sasuke asked, seemingly dumbfounded.

Sakura blushed slightly. "Yes," she said. "That's how I feel. I'd do anything for that."

Spurred by Sakura's feelings, Igesu changed himself into a serval like Digadi, then leapt down from the bench and flicked his ears as an invitation for her to join him. Surprisingly, she did, and they sniffed each other's noses in greeting.

Sakura, meanwhile, on the bench, had pursed her lips together and had leaned forward toward Sasuke, who looked shocked and didn't know what to do. How could his daemon be so calm?

---

What was Naruto's plan? He spoke softly to Ehetia and she grinned her agreement, aiding him as they slunk across the divide and leapt through the window in a small attack. At first, it was they who were pinned down, but Ehetia escaped and grabbed Digadi by the back, forcing her down while Naruto subdued Sasuke after freeing himself. It had been simple, easy to surprise them both because Sasuke did not know any of Naruto's skills. Now it was Sasuke who lay tied up on the floor of his apartment, Digadi just now waking up and starting to teethe apart the rope.

"In class," she hissed through her teeth, "he couldn't even do a single replication. Not like the many he did just a while ago. How could he give that idiot daemon of his the chance to escape and then combine it with a shadow clone jutsu like that? What bullshit!"

---

"It's true," Sakura muttered, her lips still pursed and her eyes now closed. "I'm desperate."

_I finally know why I like Sakura so much,_ Naruto thought, still disguised as Sasuke, and he leaned toward her as well. _I finally understand._

But then there was a twisting in his stomach, an awful twisting that Ehetia felt as well, and she began to squirm and arch her back as though she were trying to escape it.

_What rotten timing!_ Naruto thought as he leaped up, grabbed Ehetia, and ran. He needed a bathroom. It didn't matter where, he just needed one!

"Hey, what's the matter?" Sakura asked, shocked.

"I'll be right back!" Naruto called back as Sasuke, and then he ran faster.

"Who knew he was so shy?" Igesu laughed, jumping up into Sakura's lap as a genet.

"Maybe he needs a little time to get ready," Sakura offered, stroking her daemon and blushing furiously at the same time.

---

"My stomach was so upset I almost lost control of the jutsu," Naruto sighed once he and Ehetia were safely in the bathroom. "That was too close."

"Just take your crap already!" Ehetia whined, her normal fox form once again. "My stomach's upset because your stomach's upset!" She wriggled around the stall floor to prove her point.

"Why did it have to happen right then, just as she was about to... argh!" Naruto growled.

"She thinks that _we're _annoying!" Ehetia said angrily. "She said that at least twice! We transform into Sasuke, get close to her, and she has to say _that_?"

"I know what we should do," Naruto said, a smirk on his face. "We can make Sasuke and Digadi act obnoxious. Then she'll hate them more than us."

---

Sakura still sat fidgeting on the bench, waiting for Sasuke's return. She had her fingers entwined in Igesu's fur, who was purring like there was no tomorrow, but then there was a noise, and she looked up.

It was Sasuke and Digadi, but he wasn't even looking at her.

"Sasuke, you're back!" Sakura said excitedly, and Igesu jumped down to greet Digadi, but she was ignoring him too. "Don't be so shy, you bad boy! Are you ready now? Mentally prepared? I am—raring to go!"

Digadi shoved Igesu bodily aside and continued to follow her human, leaping up onto his shoulder after a few steps.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Sakura said, turning around.

"Where's Naruto?" Sasuke asked.

"Oh see," Sakura snorted, "there you go—changing the subject again. Anyway, Naruto just picks fights with you. You know why he's so annoying? It's 'cause he wasn't raised right. I mean, look at Ehetia—she's practically feral, and have you ever noticed those damn _eyes_ of hers? Downright creepy if you ask me.

"He doesn't have a mother or father, no one to teach him right from wrong. Think about it—he just does whatever comes into his head."

Digadi stiffened and looked back at Sakura with a cold brown gaze, but the girl didn't notice.

"If I did things like Naruto," she was continuing, "forget it. My parents would get mad, and I'd get in trouble, so of course I don't do it."

Now Sasuke removed Digadi from his shoulder and held her in his arms instead so he could glare at Sakura himself, but she still didn't notice the iciness of his gaze.

"But if you don't have parents to tell you, how would you know? He's selfish and bratty. He's all alone."

Sasuke looked away after the last word of her sentence. He repeated it. "Alone," he said quietly. "Isolated. It's not about your parents scolding you. You have no idea what it means to be alone."

"Wh-why are you saying that?" Sakura stammered, pulling her arm up across her chest.

"Because," he said, turning to her. "You're annoying."

Sakura stood stock still, and Igesu bristled, watching Sasuke leave with his daemon right beside him.

---

"That's a good plan," Ehetia agreed, ready to work now that her stomach had calmed down.

"Then what are we still doing sitting on the can?" Naruto asked. "Let's go!" He raced out of the bathroom, Ehetia skidding around the curve with him on her sharp fox claws, and then they both skidded to a halt.

Sasuke was walking toward them.

"Sasuke!" Naruto said angrily. "What are you doing here? How did you get loose?"

"I used the escape jutsu on Digadi and she pulled my ropes free. No sweat."

Ehetia glared at Digadi, who had pulled her lips back over her fangs in a hiss. Ehetia returned the gesture, adding a high growl to her baring of teeth.

"Why'd you do that?" Sasuke asked, and there was some honesty and sincerity in his voice. "Transform into me?"

"I thought it'd be fun to try out my moves on you, so I did," Naruto retorted hotly. Then, without further notice, he swept his hands into the seal for the shadow clone jutsu. Instantly there were a handful of Narutos and Ehetias in the hallway. The Narutos went for Sasuke, and the Ehetias made for Digadi.

"The same technique again?" Sasuke asked, annoyed.

"This time you'll see what I can really do," Naruto growled. "You're going down!"

But Ehetia yelped then, and it wasn't because Digadi had retaliated. There was another rancid twisting in her stomach, and all of her clones disappeared along with Naruto's.

They rushed back to the bathroom together, and made it just in time.

"What a loser," Digadi hissed, leaping up into Sasuke's arms.

---

"I'm annoying?" Sakura asked. "That's what he said. Now I get it. This is how Naruto must feel. We shouldn't treat him like that. Next time we're going to be nice, right?" She looked down at Igesu, a tabby still in her arms, and he nodded, smiling.

"Maybe I ate something bad." It was Naruto's voice. A whining peal of annoyance heralded Ehetia in her fox form, and Sakura looked up, eager to keep the promise she just made to her daemon and herself.

"Hey, Naruto!" she called. "Let's walk back to class together!"

"Did she really just say that?" Ehetia asked so only her human would understand. She looked up at him reluctantly as Sakura laughed. "She would never! It must be Sasuke!" And she began to growl again.

"Trying to trick us, huh?" Naruto asked angrily. "Well, it's not going to work!" Then there was yet another twisting, and Ehetia felt she could have cried.

"God dammit!" she shouted, and it came out in such a way so that Sakura understood it as well, and she looked shocked. Ehetia couldn't have cared less at the moment. "Get us to a fucking bathroom!" she screamed.

Naruto grabbed her around her middle (she could have killed him were he someone else) and raced back along the road toward the bathroom.

Sakura stood shocked for a few seconds before she felt the familiar rage at him bubble up again. "Naruto!" she shouted. "Fine! Forget me being nice to you!"

"That was fast," Igesu remarked with a grin.

---

Kakashi, Hiye, Sarutobi and Gijega stood in Naruto's apartment, in his kitchen. Hiye had her paws up on the window, looking out and breathing the fresh air wafting through.

"So this is where Naruto lives?" Kakashi asked.

"He has a nice view," Hiye commented. "You can see the Hokage Mountain from here."

"Yes," Sarutobi said. "He and Ehetia will be on your team, along with Haruno Sakura and Sasuke from the Uchiha clan. Good luck. You'll need it." Gijega laughed quietly.

Hiye hopped down from the window and paced around the kitchen a ways. "This place smells," she said, lifting her lip above a tooth. "Does he ever clean it?"

"It's doubtful," Gijega replied. "He and Ehetia have other things to worry about."

"That daemon of his," Hiye continued. "She will be my sole responsibility, yes? It would break taboo for Kakashi to even go near enough to brush her fur."

"Yes," Sarutobi said again. "It would be wise of you to watch her and make sure she settles properly, without much trauma, like you did."

Hiye grunted the affirmative. "Trauma or not, I want to see what happens if Naruto loses control for a moment. If she will change, regardless of her being settled. I suppose the only good thing about his having the Kyuubi in him is that he can never be cut from her. They can be separated but never cut."

"And yet that is also a disadvantage," Kakashi said. "Those that are cut from their daemons can go far, even farther than those that are just separated—sometimes it saves their lives."

"True," Hiye said. "But those that are cut can die from the shock. Being separated is much safer."

"Yes," Kakashi mused, and he knew she spoke of their own experience. Trauma was something they both knew well, and flirted with very often, if one were to judge by the amount of scars Hiye had. Soul wounds, they were called. Marks made only by trauma, and the only marks that could be made upon a daemon to create a scar.

Kakashi reached for a milk carton sitting on Naruto's table. It was unwise to leave milk out for more than a few minutes—it should have been in the fridge. "This milk is way past its expiration date," he said. "One sip of this and he'd be running to the bathroom all day. Seems like this kid's just one big problem."

"If I get another scar from that daemon of his," Hiye growled, "if that Kyuubi spirit in her so much as nibbles on my toe—God, I'll rip off her damn head!"

"Easy, Hiye," Kakashi said sharply, and she calmed down slightly.

"I'm half deaf in one ear and blind in one eye," she said. "If I lose anything else, it'll be your balls."

"I'll keep that in mind," the silver-haired jounin said with a sigh. How he came to have a daemon like that, he'd never know.


	4. Pass or Fail: Survival Test

A/N: Whoo, the first real fight scene! I'm stoked! I think Hiye is so badass, it's not even funny! -huggles Hiye plushie-

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or His Dark Materials.

**Soul Wounds Trilogy  
Book One  
The Boy with Two Daemons**

**Chapter Four  
Pass or Fail: Survival Test**

The afternoon was only slightly warmer than the morning had been, brighter, too. Inside the empty classroom, Naruto sat with his daemon, Sasuke, Sakura, and their daemons, muttering, "He's late," for the umpteenth time under his breath. He looked around the edge of the door to see if the teacher was coming or not—there was no sign of any life in the corridors, not even a floating dust bunny to herald any sort of presence.

"Naruto!" Sakura called. "Just sit down!"

"I don't want to," Naruto retorted. "How come our teacher's the only one that's late? The other groups already met their new teachers and are probably off on some adventure or something!"

"Did you see their daemons?" Igesu asked so the whole room could understand him. He sat on the desk beside Sakura, leaning against her shoulder as a clouded leopard. "They were amazing. A wolverine and a snake—I want to settle into something just as powerful."

"Iruka-sensei's gone, too!" Naruto continued, ignoring him.

"We know, okay?" Sakura said with a sigh. She rested her hand on Igesu's head and enjoyed the sound of his heavy purr. "Hey, what are you _doing_?"

Naruto was standing up on a stool, holding the door tight while he slipped a dusty eraser into the crack. Ehetia giggled quietly below him.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted, coming to stand behind the fox daemon.

"That's what he gets for coming late!" Naruto said excitedly, hopping down from the stool. "Surprise!"

"You're asking for trouble," Sakura reprimanded, hands on hips. "You know you shouldn't do that."

Igesu was laughing quietly and said to only Sakura, "Yeah, you're full of it! We both know we love stuff like this!"

"Our teacher's a jounin," Sasuke said quietly from his corner. "You think he'd fall for that?"

"Yeah, Sasuke's right," Sakura agreed. "You're so clueless, Naruto."

Just then, a hand reached through to touch the door's edge lightly, shocking Sakura and making Naruto grin like a dog. Sasuke and Digadi watched silently, calculating how _skilled _their new jounin teacher actually was.

The door opened, and the eraser fell onto a head that looked more like a gray mop than anything, but the jounin stepped inside, unfazed.

"I got him!" Naruto laughed. "He totally fell for it!" Ehetia barked her own laughter.

"I'm sorry, sensei!" Sakura said worriedly. "I told him not to do it, but he wouldn't listen! I would never do anything like that!"

"Perfect shot!" Igesu laughed, rubbing his head against Sakura's thigh after jumping down from the desk.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes and Digadi bore her fangs a bit. How idiotic.

But the man said nothing and merely stepped more fully inside to allow his daemon to come through behind him. She was a sight to behold if he wasn't. Sakura couldn't decide whether to classify her as ugly or beautiful. The puma was ugly in that scars crisscrossed her body like a puzzle or a story, a story that was begging to be told, but one that was also impossible to understand because it was written in an unknown tongue. She was so badly scarred that she was blind in her left eye, and her left ear was shredded to the point where Sakura doubted she could hear very well. She was thin enough to be called malnourished, with her ribs just peeking out from beneath her rough hide, but her head was small enough to make her seem proportionately stable at least.

However, Sakura saw, the cat was also extraordinarily beautiful. Coming up to her human's waist, she was the average height of a cougar, with a long, elegant tail that had an extra bushiness about it which reminded Sakura somewhat of a snow leopard. Her pelt, a shining ash-gray splashed with tan and white along her jaw and underbelly, rippling over wiry muscles as she moved, reminded Sakura of water falling over stone.

"Whoa," Igesu breathed next to her ear.

"Whoa is right," Sakura whispered back. The cougar's human was equally as wiry, though it was hard to tell beneath his clothing, with the same ash-gray hair and pale skin to complement it, though that was difficult to see beneath his mask. His left eye was covered as well, making Sakura wonder whether he was blind in that eye as his daemon was.

But then she noticed something, and it made her pause in her speculation. The puma was looking straight at Ehetia, her eyes narrowed dangerously. She stood stiff-legged and rigid, and only when the man's eye flickered to her did she lose her tension and sit beside him, the water over stone effect lost with her sudden coarseness.

"Hmm," the man said, picking up the eraser and placing it on the desk, "how can I put this? Our first impression of this group: you're all a bunch of idiots."

---

"All right," the man said atop a roof-garden above the academy, "why don't you introduce yourselves one at a time?"

"Introduce ourselves?" Sakura asked. "What are we supposed to say?"

The man opened his arms from their crossed position over his chest as he leaned against the railing across from the three genin. His puma flicked her tail idly where she lay down at his feet. "Things you like," he said. "Things you hate. Hobbies. Your name, obviously, your daemon's name, what you want your daemon to settle into, if they haven't already. Dreams for the future. Things like that." He crossed his arms over his chest again.

"Why don't you tell us some stuff first?" Naruto asked, Ehetia lying down beside him as a fox. "Before we talk, tell us about you so we can see how it's supposed to work."

"Me?" the man asked, pointing to himself. "I'm Hatake Kakashi. My daemon's name is Hiye. Things we like and things we hate—I don't feel like telling you that. Dreams for the future—never really thought about it. Hobbies—Hiye and I have lots of hobbies. And, obviously, she's already settled, so that rules out that question for me."

"That was totally useless," Sakura said, hugging her knees. Igesu sat as a thrush on her shoulder. "All he really told us was his and his daemon's name."

"Okay," Kakashi said. "Your turn. You on the right. You first."

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto," Naruto said. "This here's my daemon Ehetia. I'd really like it if she settled into a fox"—Sakura noticed Hiye look up sharply—"but I really don't care what she settles into. She's great." For a few minutes Naruto continued about his undying love for ramen and his undying hate for the waiting period between heating up the ramen and actually eating it. Hiye yawned as though to make a point, and finally Naruto said, with Ehetia barking her support, "My future dream is to be the greatest Hokage! Then everyone will have to stop disrespecting me and start treating me like I'm somebody—somebody important!"

"Well," Hiye chuckled so that only Kakashi could understand, "he's grown up in a very interesting way. Brownie points for the Hokage for that setup." Then she grew serious. "But look at his daemon's_eyes_, Kakashi."

Kakashi said nothing. If he said anything, it would give away the fact that he was having a side conversation with his daemon, and that wasn't something he wanted, especially not with the topic being what it was.

"You felt my memory too back there," Hiye said lowly. "Of the nine-tails."

Kakashi glanced over at Naruto's daemon. Ehetia was her name. He caught a glimpse of her eyes, and with a jolt, realized that Hiye was absolutely right. The fox bore an uncanny resemblance to the Kyuubi, an almost scary one.

But he had no time for that now. It was the girl's turn. "All right," he said, "next."

"My name's Haruno Sakura," Sakura said proudly. "When my daemon Igesu settles, I'd like it if he were something big and strong—maybe the clouded leopard form you saw in the classroom, sensei." And then she grew quiet as she went on about her likes and dislikes, stammering and stuttering and not even able to get out what she "liked," or, in Kakashi's mind, who she was obsessed with.

"Girls her age are more interested in boys than training," Hiye sighed, "though that clouded leopard form was promising. Igesu seems to have a bit of sense in him where the girl just lollygags."

"And?" Kakashi asked Sakura, still pretending to ignore Hiye, thought it was obvious to her he was listening intently to every word she said. "What do you hate?"

"Naruto and Ehetia!" Sakura ground out. Naruto put on a hurt face, but said nothing.

"Last one," Kakashi said. _This should be interesting._

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke," Sasuke said slowly. "My daemon Digadi's already settled, so I can't say I have any wish for her to be anything different. We hate a lot of things, and we don't particularly like anything."

Hiye noticed that Sakura seemed affronted by this, and flicked her ear slightly.

"What we have is not a dream," Sasuke continued, "because we will make it a reality. We're going to restore our clan and destroy a certain someone."

Ehetia jumped onto Naruto's shoulder as a pine martin, wrapping herself protectively around his neck. "I hope he doesn't mean you," she whispered into his ear.

"Hm," Hiye said with a sniff. "Just as we thought. He's hellbent on revenge. With a daemon like that, he won't get very far, though."

Then she stood and shook herself, surprising everybody except Kakashi. "Good," she said aloud. "You're each unique and you have your own ideas. Since I'm your sensei as well now, expect me to be speaking at least as much as Kakashi. We'll have our first mission tomorrow. Oh, and I want your daemons speaking, too. They should get in the habit."

"Uh, what kind of mission are we going to have?" Ehetia asked, jumping down from Naruto's shoulder and sitting her little martin body upright.

Hiye smiled slightly, the scars of her face twitching. "It's a task that the eight of us will do together."

"What?" Naruto asked eagerly.

"A survival exercise," Kakashi said.

"I thought we were supposed to have a real mission, not more practice," Sakura growled. "We already did this stuff at the academy—that's how we got here."

"This is not like your previous training," Kakashi replied simply.

"So," Naruto asked, "what kind of training is it then?"

And then Kakashi laughed a chuckling laugh that lasted for an eerily ephemeral amount of time. His daemon joined him, though hers was more of a huff. She threw her head back to do it, though, and Sakura noticed the set of scars on her throat that looked like someone had taken a huge bite out of her. No fur grew there at all—the skin was dark gray like a burn, and tight.

"No wonder her voice is so raspy," Igesu whispered. "That must have hurt them both so badly!"

"Hey, hold on," Sakura said, nodding to Igesu to acknowledge his words. "That's a normal question. What's so funny?"

Kakashi slowed down on the laughing, and Hiye put a paw over her muzzle to stifle her own coughing giggles, then her human said, "If I tell you the answer, you're not going to like it."

"Then I'll tell them," Hiye laughed, and instantly schooled herself. She turned her good eye upon the six before her. "Of the twenty-seven graduates who came here, only nine will actually be accepted as genin. The other eighteen will be weeded out and sent back to the academy. In other words, this is a make-it or break-it pass-fail test. The chance that you'll fail is at least sixty-six percent."

The expressions on their faces were enough to make both teachers laugh again, but they didn't. Instead, Kakashi said, "I told you that you weren't going to like it."

"That's crazy!" Naruto said, and Ehetia became a spitting wildcat. "We worked hard to get here! What was that graduation test for anyway?"

"Oh, that," Kakashi said. "That was just to select candidates who might become genin, or not."

"What?" Naruto asked angrily.

"That's how it is," Hiye growled, and from where he had jumped up, Naruto gulped and immediately sat down at the sight of her fangs. "We decide whether you pass or fail. Be at the designated training spot at five AM, and bring your ninja gear."

"We're not going to be weeded out!" Ehetia whispered to Naruto, putting her paws on his leg. "People are going to look up to us someday! We've got to pass this test!"

While Igesu twittered in Sakura's ear and Ehetia into Naruto's, Hiye keenly noticed with her good eye that Sasuke and Digadi only trembled, and Digadi masked it by licking her paw. That's when Hiye saw what she was looking for—on the upturn of the serval's muzzle, there was a ragged patch of fur along the snout.

"A soul wound," she whispered, and Kakashi looked down at her questioningly. "Of course it would be there, but I'm surprised it is that small."

Kakashi stood then, and raising his hand said, "You're dismissed. Oh—tomorrow you'd better skip breakfast or else you'll puke."

---

"So, what was it you were trying to tell me earlier?" Kakashi asked Hiye as they returned to their apartment. Hiye hopped up onto Kakashi's bed in the bedroom and curled up with a sigh. "About a soul wound?"

She looked up sharply. "Digadi. She has one."

"I would assume she would," Kakashi said, narrowing his eye. He took off his headband and placed it on the desk, then pulled down his mask and scratched his cheek. "After what happened to Sasuke, I'd be shocked if she _didn't_ have one."

"But it's _small_," Hiye said. "It's difficult to see it's so small. Not like mine. Mine are so visible it's almost like I'm fur-less."

"Where is it?" Kakashi asked, now interested.

"On her snout. Normally fur doesn't grow out there, but it's grown over her scar," Hiye explained. "It's maybe the length of my claw, no longer."

"Interesting," Kakashi mused.

Hiye stood and leaped down from the bed, looking up at her human with a cold eye. "Kakashi, his entire family was killed. Slaughtered. Massacred. Digadi should be maimed if that's the case. Utterly horrified."

"She's found a way to mask it."

"If that were possible," Hiye growled, turning away, "don't you think I would have tried it by now?"

"Point made," Kakashi said, sighing. "So what, should we tell the Hokage?"

"Hokage-sama has enough to handle for right now," Hiye said. "We can figure this out on our own."

---

Five in the morning was dawn at this time of year, and the three genin arrived at the training ground just as first light was spilling over the forests surrounding their home. Naruto, carrying his fox daemon in his arms, was yawning heavily as he arrived, as was Sakura, though she wasn't carrying Igesu in his jaguarundi form. Sasuke didn't seem to mind the early hour at all---he and Digadi came up as though it were high noon.

They waited, but Kakashi and Hiye didn't come. Dawn became early morning, and early morning became late morning before a voice finally stirred the six from their lack-of-movement stupor.

"Morning, everyone," Kakashi said, his daemon beside him, hugging close to his leg so that her fur brushed the cloth of his pants. "Ready for your first day?"

Sakura and Naruto immediately jumped up and shouted accusingly, "You're late!" Ehetia toppled out of Naruto's arms (that instantly woke her up, as she'd still been sleeping), and Igesu bore his teeth angrily in a small jaguarundi hiss. Digadi and Sasuke just looked annoyed.

"Well, someone's daemon crossed our path, and I obviously couldn't break the taboo, so we had to take the long way."

"Well," Hiye said, moving away from Kakashi's side while Sakura and Naruto quietly fumed, "let's get started."

Kakashi set an alarm clock on a stump close by and set it. "Here we go," he said. "It's set for noon. And here you go, Hiye." He took from his pocket a sort of collar made from cotton. From it hung a small silver bell. He slipped the collar over Hiye's head, causing Ehetia to giggle a bit at the silliness of her sensei dressing his daemon up like a pet, then took out his own bell and tied it to his waist.

"Your assignment is very simple," Kakashi said, gesturing to the bells. "You just have to take these bells from us. That's all there is to it. If you can't get them by noon, you go without lunch. You'll be tied to those posts over there"---he gestured to three tall wooden pillars standing in the center of the clearing---"and watch while I eat my lunch in front of you."

"What about our daemons?" Naruto asked. "You can't tie them up without breaking the taboo!"

"If your daemons can't take the bell from around my neck," Hiye said, and shifted slightly so that the thing jingled, "then I bind them personally. You'd be surprised how good I am with a vine. Either way, you're not eating unless you take these."

"So that's why," Digadi hissed to Sasuke. "He told us not to eat breakfast to make it harder on us!"

"Wait a minute," Sakura said. "There're three of us! Why are there only two bells?"

"Wrong," Hiye snapped. "There are six of you. No matter what your parents have told you, you and your daemons are _separate_ entities. They may be a part of your soul, but they are not your body by any means."

"Well, why are there only two bells?" Sakura asked, undeterred.

"Well, that way," Kakashi said with a smile, "at least one of you will fail the mission and will end up tied to a post. That one goes back to the academy. Then again, all three of you could flunk out too. You can use any weapons including shuriken. There's only one rule---Ehetia and Igesu are not allowed to change shape."

"What?" Naruto screeched. "Why?"

Hiye answered, "As you grow older, your daemon gradually loses the ability to change shape. It settles, like Digadi and I already have. Therefore, the rule here is that your daemon chooses a shape for this task and sticks to it. If they change, they're disqualified. But let me say that if you're not prepared to kill us, you won't be able to take the bells."

"When I say start," Kakashi said, "you can begin. But, pick a form first, Igesu and Ehetia."

"That fox form's a little weak for this," Naruto said, crouching down. "How about a wolf?"

"Right," Ehetia barked. Her legs, hackles, and body instantly became longer and taller. She thinned and grew more muscular, and she tried on a snarl for size. Hiye noted quickly that her eyes and markings did not change at all. When the change was finished, Ehetia came up to a little less than Hiye's eye, and was a little less long from nose tip to tail tip.

Igesu already knew the form he was going to take---the clouded leopard suited him best for fighting.

"All right," Naruto shouted. "Let's go, Ehetia!" With that, he pulled a kunai from his pocket and charged forward. Ehetia did so as well, darting to Hiye's blind side and opening her jaws for her neck.

In a flash, Kakashi had his hand over Naruto's, and Hiye had pinned down Ehetia with a heavy paw. Kakashi pointed Naruto's kunai to the back of his own head, holding the boy steady with his other hand. Hiye let out a long, low hiss and unsheathed her claws so that they just barely pricked at Ehetia's skin.

"Don't be in such a hurry," Kakashi said. "I didn't say 'start' yet." He pushed Naruto forward and Hiye stepped off of Ehetia, who dashed back to Naruto's side. Hiye's good eye held a seriousness so severe that it had Igesu trembling.

"But," Kakashi continued, "you came at us with the full intent of destroying us, so… how can I say this? I'm actually starting to like you guys."

"Get ready," Hiye said. "And… start!" The six genin leaped away, out of sight.

---

Iruka and Yideyu sat with Sarutobi and Gijega in a tall reception room lined with tiles and finely plastered walls. They sat at a coffee table, drinking tea.

"Iruka," Sarutobi said. "What did you wish to see us about? I don't think you came here merely to drink tea with me and chat, did you?"

"Naruto's been assigned to Squad Seven," Iruka said, his hands folded. "The jounin in charge of that group---just how tough of a trainer is he?"

"Kakashi, you mean," Sarutobi said. "You are concerned about him."

"I am," Iruka said, letting his hands fall to the tabletop. "I heard a rumor about his training methods. I heard his daemon's ill, too. Chronic pain and vomiting. It leads me to believe that he's a little sick in the head."

"Hiye is in perfect health," Sarutobi said as he placed a small blue book on the table, "though I can understand your worry in that aspect. A daemon's appearance reflects the soul---a scarred, malnourished puma means Kakashi is strong and skilled, but he's been through quite a lot and hasn't gotten much out of it for his efforts."

"I see," Iruka said, picking up the book. He gestured to it. "What's this?"

"All the trainees ever been assigned to him," Sarutobi said. "Those who passed him, and those who failed."

Slightly disconcerted, Iruka opened the book and flipped through the pages, seeing so many "Failed" markings that it was almost staggering.

---

"Ninja must know how to conceal their movements and hide effectively," Kakashi was saying, alone in the clearing now with Hiye. From in the bushes and trees, the genin waited for an opening to attack.

"Well, they understand that much," Hiye muttered. "They've hidden well."

"You might stand mistaken, Hiye," Kakashi said, pointing. Hiye turned her good eye toward Naruto and Ehetia, who were standing out in the open, plainly in view.

"You and me, right now, fair and square," Naruto said. Ehetia barked her agreement. "Let's go!"

"Fool," Digadi whispered from the shadows.

"You know," Kakashi was saying, "compared to the others, you're a bit weird."

"Oh yeah? The only thing weird here is your haircut and your daemon!" Naruto said, charging forward again. Ehetia was not more than a step behind him.

"It makes me wish we were in ANBU again," Hiye hissed as she readied herself into a low defensive crouch and Kakashi reached into his pocket. "Please don't tell me you're taking _that_ out now."

Naruto, noticing Kakashi's hand, leaped backwards and stopped, Ehetia with him. She had her eyes on Hiye's flicking tail, the puma's almost bony body bunched with rock hard muscle, waiting to spring.

"Shinobi battle techniques part one," Kakashi said, looking up at the sky. "Taijutsu."

_Why is he reaching for a weapon if it's taijutsu?_ Naruto thought, aware that Ehetia had to focus her complete attention on Hiye.

But it wasn't a weapon Kakashi pulled out, it was a book. It was a bright orange book with a man chasing a woman across the cover, and a red cross-slash on the back.

"A book?" Naruto asked aloud.

"What are you waiting for?" Kakashi asked. "Make your move."

"Why are you reading that book?" Naruto asked in return, perturbed.

"Why?" Kakashi repeated as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "To find out what happens in the story, of course. Don't let it bother you. With your weak attacks it doesn't really matter if I'm reading or whatever. Hiye could be washing her paw and Ehetia wouldn't land a hit. Same goes for me and you."

Naruto clenched his fist angrily and Ehetia let out a low growl as Hiye raised herself up again. "Good idea," the puma said. "It does feel like I've got a rock stuck there or something." She raised her paw to her mouth and began tugging at the fur in between the pads, more intently focused on that, it seemed, than anything else.

"I'll show you weak!" Ehetia snarled as she and Naruto rushed forward. But it was in vain---as soon as Ehetia got a few inches away, Hiye ducked down so quickly it was like the wolf daemon was moving in slow motion. Then she brought her muzzle up slowly enough and with perfect timing so that a resounding crack reverberated through the air as the top of her muzzle met with Ehetia's jaw, sending the wolf reeling backwards.

Naruto felt the bad bruising too, obviously, but he was running toward Kakashi, and took no notice. Kakashi raised a hand and blocked Naruto's punch, ducked underneath his kick, and disappeared when a second punch was thrown.

"Don't let your enemy get behind you all the time," Kakashi said from behind Naruto. Ehetia opened her eyes and found that Hiye was no longer in front of her either.

"A hand-sign to focus his chakra!" Igesu whispered, looking at Kakashi's hands. "Is that the sign of the tiger? And look at where Hiye-sensei's fangs are!" They were hovering right at Ehetia's back. "I know they say daemons can't die, but there must be a limit!" He squirmed uncomfortably.

"That hand-sign is for a fire jutsu," Digadi hissed beside Sasuke across the clearing. "He's not just toying with us. He really means to kill us."

"Naruto, get out of there, quick!" Sakura shouted, standing up. Igesu clapped a paw over his muzzle and stayed hidden, though it was too late for his human. "He's going to destroy you!"

"Too late," Kakashi said. "Leaf Village secret finger jutsu!" And he brought his fingers right to a place where it hurt the most. "A thousand years of death!"

At the same moment, Hiye grounded herself with her claws, grabbed Ehetia by the scruff, and pulled her down to the ground in preparation for throwing. And just as Kakashi's extra push sent Naruto flying into the air, Hiye spun on a pivot and hurled the wolf bodily after her human.

"That wasn't a hand-sign at all," Sakura muttered. "And so much for biting her back, Hiye only got skin."

"Our teammates are just total idiots," Sasuke murmured to Digadi, who nodded her agreement.

Ehetia landed in the river with a yelp, Naruto following suit. Kakashi and Hiye stood, and while Sakura thought it must take tremendous strength on the puma's part to throw a wolf that far, her mouth wasn't even open to get extra air.

"Okay," Kakashi said, picking up his book again. "Where was I?"

"That must be against the rules," Igesu whimpered. "He's a jounin---we can't possibly match his strength!"

Suddenly, two shuriken sprang out from the water, shocking Sasuke and Sakura. But Kakashi caught them on his fingers and spun them as though they were a simple toy.

From where Sasuke had his hand near his kunai holster, he moved it back to his lap.

---

"It can't be," Iruka muttered. Yideyu cawed fretfully as she read the little blue book over his shoulder. "It's even worse than the rumors!"

"Kakashi's tests may be a bit more difficult than the others," Sarutobi said placatingly.

"A bit more difficult?" Iruka snapped. "Not a single student has ever passed his test."

"That's true," Sarutobi said. "They all tried, but not one of them could live up to Kakashi and Hiye's standards. So they were all expelled from the program."

---

Naruto and Ehetia crawled up on to the river bank, Naruto coughing pitifully while Ehetia actually spat up a clear pool of water.

"What are you doing now?" Kakashi asked with a sigh, standing over them. "You know you won't get lunch unless you take a bell by noon."

"I know, I know," Naruto snapped. "You told us already!"

"You look pretty wobbly for someone who's going to surpass the Hokage," Hiye sneered, rasping her tongue over her muzzle.

A loud rumble permeated the entire clearing, coming from all three genin and their daemons. "He told us not to eat breakfast!" Naruto snapped to Hiye, pointing a finger at her human accusingly. "How can you expect us to fight when we're starving to death? So you two caught us off-guard---that's all it was!" Then he placed a hand over his stomach. "I'm so hungry," he murmured as Kakashi and Hiye walked away, "I don't have any strength!"

"No," Ehetia growled. "We've gotta get one of those bells no matter what! We are _not_ going back to the academy!"

And then, from the water came a handful of clone pairs, the water cascading off them in rainbows. "You're overconfident, sensei!" Ehetia howled. "Get ready for our best jutsu!"

"Seven of each of them?" Igesu hissed incredulously. "And they're real!"

"Hm," Hiye growled, looking at the oncoming mini-army with Kakashi. "It's pitiful. His daemon doesn't even have any jutsu of her own. Shall I?"

"Not yet. Wait a while," Kakashi said. "We're still only on taijutsu, remember? But you have to give the boy credit, at least. Shadow clones are a forbidden skill, and he defeated Mizuki with it."

"Mizuki was a joke," Hiye said. "But I see your point."

"Great technique," Kakashi called to the fourteen Narutos and Ehetias, "but I don't think you can maintain it for very long. You both talk like you're the best, but you're still the worst students. You can't beat Hiye and me with this jutsu."

And then there was a ripping pain along the back of his neck. Kakashi whirled around---a Naruto had latched on to his back, hugging him tightly, and the pain was coming not from the human clone, but one of the Ehetias, who had her fangs buried tightly at the base of Hiye's neck, reaching for the collar around her throat. They both must have crept up on the pair's blind side---it was the only way such a strategy was feasible.

Hiye let out a yowl as the other Ehetias attacked her, blood cascading down her shoulders in rivers the shape of wolf fangs.

"Didn't you say don't let your enemies get behind you?" Naruto asked, holding on. "Good advice, sensei! I'm guessing you're feeling Ehetia's teeth too, though, right? How does it feel to get bit like that?"

The Ehetias were snapping and snarling at a twisting Hiye who was careful not to expose her throat to them. She grabbed one of the Ehetias by the jugular and pulled down, ripping the throat clear in a shower of smoke, and the other Ehetias backed a way for a moment, frightened. The one on Hiye's back only held tighter, however, balancing on the thin cat's spine.

"This is for nailing me in the butt earlier!" Naruto shouted, bringing his elbow down toward Kakashi's face.

But it ended up that Naruto hit himself, and that Ehetia was chewing on herself, for Kakashi and Hiye were gone, with only Hiye's blood as a reminder of what had just occurred.

Safe in the shadow of the forest, Kakashi laid a hand on Hiye's shoulder as he watched the wound in her neck swiftly close, as most daemon wounds do. The only type of wound that doesn't heal so quickly for a daemon is a soul wound. Once the skin was sealed nicely, Kakashi dabbed at the blood caked on his daemon's fur with his sleeve, waiting for the pain at the back of his own neck to recede.

"That was unexpected," he commented idly. "And so was your reaction."

"Daemons are brawlers for the most part, not strategists," Hiye said. "You should know that by now. Their killing intent was good, though. I think we got our point across. Leave the rest of the blood as a flag."

Kakashi removed his sleeve and rubbed her shoulder affectionately before standing. The pain was mostly gone now. He and Hiye crept through the underbrush and watched as the many Narutos and Ehetias fought with each other trying to find out which among them were Kakashi and the puma.

Kakashi sighed. "You're right---they are pitiful. Never mind about what I said before."

Hiye snorted.

"He got the loser with a replacement jutsu," Digadi said quietly, looking. "Idiot. In this case, the jounin let himself get caught, and then switched places with one of the Naruto clones."

"That blood looks real, though," Sasuke said. "I wonder if Hiye allowed herself to get caught as well or if that was a mistake."

"She's blind in one eye," Digadi said, "and she looks like she might be deaf somewhat. Remember that---her left side."

"Got it."

"Naruto, look, a bell!" Ehetia said excitedly, sniffing at the shining silver bauble. "We must have got to them with our attack! They dropped a bell!"

Naruto raced forward to pick it up, but before he could touch it, a rope lashed out and caught him by the foot, hoisting him up into the air, away from a yelping Ehetia. For a moment, Naruto panicked, thinking that he might go too far away from his daemon, but the telltale pulling on his chest didn't start, so he relaxed. Ehetia put her paws up on the tree and whined.

"That jounin doesn't let down his guard," Digadi remarked, "even when he's fighting fools."

"Ehetia, grab the bell!" Naruto said. But he wasn't looking at her. Kakashi picked up the bell before his eyes, and Hiye dragged Ehetia over to him by the scruff of the neck, near enough to be threatening but not near enough to get close to actually breaking the taboo.

"Think before you use a jutsu," Kakashi said as he replaced the bell on his hip, "or else your opponent might use it against you." But Naruto saw the blood still trickling and just beginning to dry over Hiye's shoulders, and he only half-believed his sensei's words. "Oh and also, if the bait is obvious, don't take it."

Ehetia squirmed slightly, but Hiye shook her into silence. "Quiet," she growled through the scruff in her mouth. "Or I'll skin you alive."

"A ninja must see through deception," Kakashi continued as Naruto cursed above him.

"I get it!" the boy shouted.

"I'm telling you this because you don't get it," Kakashi interrupted. "You think you get it, which is not the same as actually getting it. Get it?"

"This is your chance!" Digadi hissed in a tree high above. "His daemon's got her left side turned towards us---get her!"

Nodding, Sasuke loosed shuriken and kunai from his fingers, and a moment later, a yowl of pain tore through the air as Hiye was knocked to the side. Ehetia yelped as she was thrown against the tree (perhaps to safety?) and Hiye limped toward a wide-eyed Kakashi a few paces before collapsing.


	5. Kakashi and Hiye's Final Decision

A/N: All hail the nifty action scenes.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or His Dark Materials.

**Soul Wounds Trilogy  
Book One  
The Boy with Two Daemons**

**Chapter Five  
You Failed! Kakashi and Hiye's Final Decision**

"Sasuke, are you out of your mind?" Naruto screamed, still hanging from the tree. "You went way too far!" Seeing Hiye stagger and fall was a horrifying sight. She was covered in blood, and now a handful of knives were stuck in her side and it looked as though Kakashi couldn't even_feel_ her pain. That was what scared Naruto the most. It was almost like they had no connection in that moment, no thought for each other besides Kakashi's terrified expression of "Oh my god, my daemon's just been blasted by shuriken."

But it seemed as though Naruto's accusations and fears were for nothing---the Hiye on the ground vanished in a puff of smoke to be replaced by a large log, and then Kakashi disappeared as well.

"Fuck!" Digadi hissed as she and her human raced through the trees, trying to find a new hiding place. "Now they know where we're hiding!"

"Keep moving," Sasuke ordered. "Damn. I thought they lowered their guard, but they did that on purpose, and we fell for it."

"So that's where he is?" Hiye purred, hiding in the underbrush with Kakashi's hand on her back, rubbing soothing circles into the bloodstained fur with his fingertip.

"Come on, Igesu, we've got to find Sasuke!" Sakura whispered as she and her daemon now raced along through the trees.

"What about us?" the clouded leopard asked, bounding after her.

"We're fine---but what if Hiye and Kakashi-sensei found Sasuke and Digadi?" Sakura replied worriedly. "I won't let them!"

"Quiet down!" Igesu hissed suddenly, jumping in front of Sakura and blocking her from stumbling into Kakashi's path. Hiye was nowhere to be seen---she was probably very close by, though. Igesu lowered himself to the ground and looked warily about them.

"Sakura. Igesu. Behind you," someone whispered, and the two of them whirled around to see Kakashi and Hiye both staring them in the face. They both let out a scream of fear---Sakura because Kakashi had surprised her so badly, and Igesu because the look on Hiye's face was so calm and collected while she reeked of blood and death. Who had she just killed?

---

"A ninja must see through deception," Naruto mocked, still hanging upside-down. Ehetia prowled below him, guarding him, unable to turn into a more helpful form for fear of being disqualified. Reaching up, Naruto cut himself down and twirled to the bottom, but this time he set off another trap, and this one caught Ehetia around her back paws, flinging her upwards and keeping her suspended. She let out a pained yelp.

"My legs aren't supposed to bend this way, Naruto! Get me down!" she cried.

---

Crouched in front of Sakura, Kakashi put his hands together to form a single seal. Leaves swept around him and his daemon and then the two were gone, leaving Sakura and Igesu dazed and unsure in their wake.

"Oh my," Sakura said after a few confused moments. "Someone there?" She looked around. "I think I felt something---what was that? Igesu?"

It was then that she realized Igesu was not by her side. She called out for him again, more panicked this time. There was no answer, for in genjutsu, only when the caster allows it can the daemon be admitted. Igesu was in another genjutsu, cast by Hiye, and was dealing with the fact that Sakura was not there for him to rub against.

Sakura felt hot tears prick her eyes. She felt her daemon, he was so _close_, but she couldn't see him at all. She shook her head wildly as if that would clear the area of a fog and allow her to see that beautiful clouded leopard form that was her soul, but it didn't work. She screamed.

---

"Hiye-sensei?" Igesu asked curiously, crouched in a defensive position with a blank, frightened look on his face. The puma stood in front of him, more skeletal than ever and absolutely stinking of the foul stink of death. "Where's Sakura? Where's my human?" His voice was shaky. His muscles twitched under his pelt.

"She cannot follow you here," the puma hissed. And then she was right in front of Igesu, not more than an inch from his face as a skeleton, with no flesh or skin or _anything_ to signify that she was alive, and her jaw hung slack and open. "She can't follow you to death."

Igesu let out a wild yowl.

---

"I think you were a little harsh on him," Kakashi said, flipping the page of his book as he sat with Hiye above Sakura and Igesu in a tree. "The Painter of Death jutsu is terrifying for kids their age."

"And you stole away her daemon," Hiye retorted. "It's fair. They've both got to learn to see through those kinds of things. That wasn't even a full-fledged jutsu, on either of our parts."

---

Sasuke whirled around. Digadi stopped her pacing and turned to look at him with her silky brown gaze, the scar over her snout just barely visible beneath her patterned fur. "What is it?" she asked.

"I thought I heard some screaming," Sasuke said. "Sounded like Sakura and Igesu."

"Shinobi battle skill number two: genjutsu," Kakashi said from where he leaned against the trunk of a tree, his book still open. Hiye sat beside him, licking the dried blood from her shoulder. It came off in crusty little flakes, and some fluttered to the ground or lodged themselves in her fur like fleas. "Sakura studied it in class but neither her nor Igesu could see it coming."

"I'm not surprised they caught _those_ two with genjutsu," Digadi hissed condescendingly.

"We're not like Sakura and Naruto," Sasuke said to Kakashi.

"Say that after you get one of these bells," Hiye growled, swinging her head proudly so that the bell around her neck jingled a haughty tune, "_my Sasuke_." She let out a puff of laughter.

There was a standoff for a few minutes after the two teachers stepped forward out of the shadows---Digadi gazing at Hiye, Sasuke at Kakashi---before Sasuke drew a few kunai and threw them forward. The daemons stood stock still, doing nothing. Kakashi dodged to one side, taunting, "There's no point using normal attacks!"

Sasuke loosed another kunai, and it cut through a rope high above Kakashi's head. Knowing that Digadi was smaller and weaker than Hiye and thus could do nothing to help their situation, the trap was directed toward the puma, toward her blind side, which, luckily for the genin, was facing the trap.

Kakashi skidded to a halt and almost tripped in his haste to get a signal to his daemon to_get out of the way_. She felt his panic and ducked easily, springing back to her human's side once the danger had passed.

Sasuke took the opportunity to get behind Kakashi, and Digadi leaped onto Hiye's back, biting her ear and drawing her claws over the collar.

When Sasuke kicked, Kakashi managed to catch his foot, then switched hands to catch a punch thrown toward his face. A third kick was blocked by an arm, but when Sasuke reached out to touch a bell, Kakashi realized he had no more limbs left with which to block. Before he was able to leap away, Sasuke had his finger on a bell.

Digadi was busy using her claws to try and cut through the collar around Hiye's neck, and Hiye was trying to shake her off like she might be water. It was difficult for the serval to hang on, mostly because Hiye's pelt was loose around her muscles and lack of body fat and so shook like a rolling barrel, but the puma wasn't even trying. Only when she heard the collar begin to tear did she become serious, running to a tree and throwing her weight against it in an attempt to steal Digadi's breath from her.

It worked, and Digadi leaped off to stand by Sasuke.

Hiye dashed to Kakashi to murmur in his ear, "This kid---his daemon's form is weak but they've adapted so easily to my size. She tore the damn collar."

"He's fierce," Kakashi replied, just as lowly. "He touched my bell. I won't be able to read my book now."

"Boohoo," Hiye mocked, shaking her head and readying herself again.

---

Ehetia was still hanging from her paws when she saw them. "Naruto!" she called. "I see boxed lunches on the big black stone down there! Cut me down so we can get them!"

Naruto threw a shuriken to cut the rope, and Ehetia twisted in the air to land easily on her paws.

---

"Well," Kakashi said, straightening. "You are different from the others, I'll grant you that."

Sasuke gritted his teeth and performed a set of seals that surprised both teachers.

Horse.

Tiger.

"That's a fire technique!" Hiye snarled, shocked. "Genin can't do that---it takes too much chakra!"

"Concentrate on Digadi, Hiye," Kakashi ordered. "I'll take care of Sasuke."

"This kid," Hiye growled as she turned to look at the small serval. The fur around her paws was glowing---lighting on fire. "Even his daemon can do jutsu!"

Sasuke cupped his hand over his mouth like a funnel and blew out a huge fireball, trying to scorch Kakashi and Hiye. Digadi stood at the ready with her own paws lit aflame, just in case Hiye should come up behind her.

The flame eventually receded, but when it disappeared, Kakashi and Hiye were nowhere to be seen.

"Where did they go?" Digadi gasped, her paws snuffing themselves out. "Behind? Above?"

"Where?" a voice said. It was Kakashi's. His hand reached up from the ground and wrapped around Sasuke's ankle in a vice-like grip. "We're where you least expect us."

At the same time that Kakashi pulled down, bringing Sasuke with him, Hiye exploded from the earth beneath Digadi, catching her around the middle. This knocked the breath from Sasuke as he was pulled under, and dazed his daemon so that she lay immobile in the puma's jaws until she set her down by her human's head.

"Earth style," Kakashi said, standing over Sasuke now. Only his head was sticking up from the ground, and Digadi lay curled around him, knocked out. "Head hunter jutsu."

Hiye jerked her head toward the serval. "Daemon's art. Snake ambush jutsu," she said. "That would be ninjutsu, the third shinobi battle skill."

"You have talent," Kakashi said, "and you are different from the others, but different isn't always better. They say that the nail that sticks up is the one that gets hammered down." He stood, pulled out his book, and began to walk away with his daemon by his side.

---

"This is great, Ehetia!" Naruto giggled. He was sitting on the large black stone with his daemon lying beside him, her tail wagging endlessly. "Sensei told us that if we don't get a bell, we don't get any lunch, but if I eat my lunch first, then there's nothing he can do."

"What were you saying?" Hiye asked from above, crouching next to her human on top of the stone.

Ehetia leaped up, her ears pinned back defensively. "We were joking, sensei!" she whimpered.

"Nice try," Kakashi said.

---

"Come on! We have to find him!" Sakura shouted.

"Sakura, slow down!" Igesu called after her.

She burst forth from the underbrush and stopped when she saw Sasuke's head and Digadi lying next to him, still unconscious. Igesu leaped out and stared as well, then they both thoroughly freaked out.

"Sasuke's just a head!" Sakura shouted.

"His daemon's not moving!" Igesu cried. Then they both fell flat on their backs and didn't move.

The noise slowly stirred Digadi from her unconscious state, and she struggled to her paws. "God, what happened?" she asked dazedly.

"I'll explain later," Sasuke said. "Help me out of here."

---

Sakura woke to find Sasuke crouched over her, and Igesu to Digadi's curious nose.

Sakura leaped up and wrapped her arms around Sasuke, while Igesu was just content to lie down and take it. After a few minutes of struggling, Sasuke managed to pry himself free from the girl's grasp, and they all stood, looking around warily.

"I've got to get one of those bells before lunch," Sasuke said. "That doesn't leave much time."

"You're still trying to get one of those bells?" Igesu asked, pressed close to Sakura's side. "I don't want to deal with their genjutsu anymore." He shivered.

"A while ago, I touched one," Sasuke explained to the clouded leopard. "This time I'll get one."

"Really?" Sakura asked. "That's great!"

Igesu growled only to her, "Great, now we'll never get one!"

"Well, it's almost lunch," Sakura said, ignoring her daemon. "There's really not enough time to get a bell---maybe we should just give up and try again next year?"

Sasuke glared at her, and Digadi hissed. Sakura stiffened. That was not the reaction she had been expecting.

Beside Sasuke, Digadi tensed and quivered inconspicuously. "Stop remembering that," she whimpered to Sasuke. The piercing gaze of the sharingan flashed across both their mindscapes, drawing the serval daemon into silence.

"I'm the only one," Sasuke said aloud, "who can destroy that person."

"What?" Sakura asked, shocked. "Who? You don't mean sensei, do you?"

"That day," Sasuke continued, heedless of his teammate, "I was crying."

"When were you crying?" Sakura asked. Like before, however, she got no result for her efforts at breaking Sasuke's trance.

"It was my…" Sasuke said, then seemed to choke on his words.

"What?" Sakura asked again. "What happened to you? Sasuke, please tell me."

"We are an avenger," Sasuke said, straightening, referring to himself and his daemon. "That means we must be stronger than our prey. We need this training---there's no time for setbacks."

But at that moment, the bell rang furiously, marking the end of the test.

Sasuke let out an angry breath. "We wasted too much time," he said, and began to stalk toward the meeting ground. Sakura and Igesu followed at a slower pace.

When they arrived at the group of wooden pillars, they found Naruto already tied to the central pillar, Ehetia wrapped in a vine below him. Igesu wrinkled his nose. He smelled the oil on the vine, and recognized the agent that prevented changing in unsettled daemons. Really, Hiye and Kakashi meant business.

"Uh-oh, stomachs growling, huh?" Kakashi asked as Sasuke and Sakura sat down. The noise was almost deafening to their hungry little ears. "That's too bad. Oh, by the way, about this exercise? Well, Hiye and I've decided. We won't send any of you back to the academy."

"What?" Sakura asked. "I passed? All I did was faint and fall over. Do you get extra points for that?" But Igesu turned into his genet form and bounded around in circles in a happy little daemon dance.

Sasuke and Digadi were the only ones that didn't give a reaction. Naruto was whooping and hollering, and Ehetia was wriggling happily against her binds.

"Yes," Hiye growled. "All of you are being dropped from the program. Permanently."

Those words stopped all six in whatever celebrations they were privately holding, and had them staring at Kakashi and Hiye as though Kakashi was a man with no daemon at all.

---

"Unbelievable," Iruka said. "Hokage-sama, please tell me that the rumors have no truth in them. Kakashi's never passed a single student, but I want to know whether he's healthy or not." Yideyu shifted uncomfortably on his shoulder.

"All rumors have some truth in them, Iruka," Sarutobi said, his hand resting lightly on Gijega's crown feathers. "Hiye has so many soul wounds, and they're all so huge, that some do cause her constant pain, sometimes so much that it's crippling. If you notice, she's often pressed unusually close to Kakashi's side, or else he has his hand on her back or head, soothing her."

"Come to think of it, I have noticed that," Iruka said thoughtfully. "What about the vomiting?"

"That comes from her looking so malnourished," Sarutobi explained. "She's actually quite healthy, but she did vomit once. That's probably where that particular rumor started. So Kakashi isn't crazy, if that's what you're asking, Iruka."

Iruka calmed down slightly. "But that still doesn't take away from the fact that he fails all of his students!" he protested.

"Iruka," Sarutobi said. "This group is young. Even I cannot say whether it is good for them to face the rigors and dangers of ninja life. However, Kakashi was correct about all those he failed."

---

"Drop us from the program?" Naruto shouted angrily. "You said that if we couldn't take the bells we'd be sent back to the academy! _You can't just change your mind and kick us out! Why would you do that?_" He struggled fruitlessly against his binds.

"Because you don't think like ninja," Kakashi said, exasperated. "You think like little kids, like brats."

Without warning then, Sasuke and Digadi charged forward, but their efforts brought nothing for them. Kakashi grabbed Sasuke and sat upon his back on the ground with his foot on the boy's head, and Hiye slammed Digadi down into the dirt, her paw showing off her milky white claws as it dug into the smaller cat's shoulder.

"You think it's all about you," Kakashi said, twisting Sasuke's arm behind him. "You don't know what it means to be a ninja. You think it's a game, huh?"

Sakura and Naruto looked at him helplessly. What could they possibly say to him?

"Why do you think we put you on squads? Did you consider that question for one moment?"

"What do you mean?" Igesu asked, back to his jaguarundi form.

"You never even recognized what this exercise was all about," Hiye snapped, still holding Digadi down with a single paw. "Not even close."

"What it's about?" Ehetia asked, wriggling against her vines.

"Yes," Kakashi said. "That's what determines whether you pass or fail."

"I wanted to ask you about that from the beginning," Sakura said meekly.

"Use your head, Sakura," Hiye growled. "Or better yet, use your daemon. He has some sense in him." She nodded to the small jaguarundi, who ducked behind his human's legs at the memory of his teacher's skeleton. "Three people on a squad. Why do you think we would do that?"

"How are we supposed to know why you picked three people?" Naruto asked angrily. "We didn't make the rules!"

"It's so basic," Kakashi said, narrowing his eyes. "_Teamwork_."

"Just working together?" Igesu asked, coming out into the open again. "Is that what you mean?"

"That's what I mean," Kakashi replied. "It's too late now, but if all of you had come at me and Hiye, you might have been able to take our bells. Well, anyway, it's over."

"Wait a minute," Sakura said. "Sensei, you set it up with three people, but only two bells! And then, each of you only had one! That's one bell for us, and one bell for our daemons! How is that fair?"

"Exactly," Kakashi said with a sigh.

"We purposely pitted you against each other," Hiye put in. "We wanted to see if you could put the squad above yourselves, if you could communicate with your daemons well enough so that if a human got a bell, their daemon wouldn't come after me. They would help the others.

"Your daemons all are powerful," the puma continued. "Digadi is a strategist. A clouded leopard has a heavy body with a low center of gravity---with enough force, Igesu could have knocked me off my feet because for a puma, I am light. For a wolf, Ehetia gives herself unusually long and sharp fangs that easily pierce hide. This wound that she gave me is real. I wore it like a flag to attract all of you together. If you had collaborated with your different forms, you could have torn me apart and taken my bell. The same goes for you scraps of children." She sniffed.

"Sakura!" Kakashi said suddenly, and the girl straightened and stiffened. "You obsessed about Sasuke, who was gone, while Naruto was right in front of you and you wouldn't lift a finger to help him. Your daemon was trying to get you to see some sense, but you ignored him. You ignored your very soul, one of the most important things a shinobi has in their arsenal. Daemons can see reason where humans cannot. They're instinctual and act according to the nature of the animal they chose as their form. Say, if I was going one way on a rocky trail, Hiye would notice a bad foothold and warn me away from it.

"Naruto," Kakashi continued. "You and Ehetia do everything on your own. _Everything_. What if you needed your daemon to be in a certain form, but she'd already settled into, let's say, a wolf? Say you needed a bird, and your teammate's daemon was a falcon. Would you even think to ask them for help?

"And you, Sasuke," Kakashi said at last, digging his heel into the back of the boy's head, "thought the others were so far beneath you that they were worthless. Arrogance." He practically spat the word at them, and it made them all cringe. "Ninja missions are carried out in squads. Of course, you need individual skills, but teamwork is the most essential element. Every shinobi understands this. When individuals put themselves above the squad, this can lead to failure and death."

He nodded to Hiye then, and Hiye lowered herself and wrapped her jaws around Digadi's relatively tiny neck. "For example," her human said, "Sakura. Kill Naruto now or Hiye will crush Digadi's throat. Sasuke will suffocate.

"That's what happens on a mission," Kakashi said sadly after watching Naruto and Sakura grapple with his words for a few seconds. Hiye lifted her head, leaving Digadi's neck fur wet and glistening from her heavy breath.

"Oh boy," Sakura said, letting her breath out in a hiss, "that was really scary."

"The enemy takes a hostage and you've got an impossible choice," Hiye said. "Someone ends up dead. On every mission, your life is on the line."

Kakashi got up and left Sasuke on the ground, moving toward the huge black stone. Hiye went with him. "Did you look at this stone?" Kakashi asked. "The names engraved on it? They are all ninja and their daemons who are honored as heroes in our village."

"That's it!" Naruto said. "Now I know! I'm gonna get my name on that stone! I'm not gonna live and die for nothing like a dog! I'm gonna be a hero, a hero!"

"They are… a special kind of hero," Kakashi said, turning to look at Naruto out of the corner of his exposed eye.

"What kind of heroes are they, sensei?" Ehetia asked, still squirming.

But Kakashi said nothing, and if one looked carefully enough, one might have been able to see that Hiye pressed herself just ever so slightly closer to her human and nuzzled his hand with her scarred, pink nose in a comforting way, like a lover, lost. What was more obvious was his reply to that: he drew his hand over her head and began to rub his usual circle over the back of her neck.

"Well?" Naruto asked eagerly.

"They're all KIA," Kakashi said at last.

"That sounds real cool!" Naruto said.

"It means 'killed in action,' Naruto. They all died," Sakura explained. Naruto's eager expression died, and he looked away, suddenly ashamed.

"This is a memorial stone," Kakashi said. "The names of our closest friends are engraved here." Of course, he meant Hiye and himself.

There was a silence. Then Kakashi turned around. "All right," he said. "I'm going to give you one more chance. But I'm going to make it much harder on you. You'll have three hours to get a bell. Eat lunch now to build up strength. But Naruto doesn't get any."

Naruto gritted his teeth, and Ehetia let out an indignant snarl. Hiye raised her eyebrow. _Interesting reaction,_ she thought.

"It's your punishment for breaking the rules and trying to eat by yourself," Kakashi said, stepping forward. "And, if anyone tries to feed him, that person will immediately fail. I make the rules. You follow them. Got it?"

---

"I'm leaving," Iruka said, Yideyu on his shoulder.

"Iruka, listen to me," Sarutobi said, hands folded. "Whether they pass or fail, you must not blame Kakashi."

"Right," Iruka said after a pause, and bowed slightly.

---

Naruto's stomach growled loudly. Sasuke and Sakura looked up at him for the third time, and Ehetia whimpered yet again.

"This isn't that big a deal," Naruto said loudly, but his stomach growled again, and he quieted.

Sasuke reached up with his bento box. "Here," he said.

"No, Sasuke," Sakura said nervously. "You heard the sensei."

"Kakashi and Hiye are gone," Sasuke replied. "We need to get those bells as a team. If Naruto's hungry, he'll be weak and ineffective. That hurts the team and jeopardizes the mission."

After a few quiet moments, Igesu, back to his clouded leopard form, finally had enough of Sakura's stubbornness and nudged her forward. She offered the bento to Naruto with stiff arms. She smiled.

"Thanks," Naruto said.

"Don't thank me," Sakura snapped, "just hurry up and eat."

"But isn't that your lunch?" he asked nervously.

"Just take it, Naruto!" Sakura growled.

"I can't move my hands," Naruto said. "You've gotta feed me."

Igesu burst out laughing, a raucous laughter that had him rolling around on his back with his paws clutching his furry abdomen, his tongue in between his teeth to try to stifle the giggles.

"Hurry up!" Sasuke warned. "They could come back any minute!"

"That's it," Sakura said. "I'll never do this again; is that clear?" She held her chopsticks at the ready.

"Clear as a bell, Sakura," Naruto replied happily. She stuck the rice in his mouth.

As soon as he swallowed, there was a fantastic explosion of dust and debris in front of them. "You!" Kakashi and Hiye both snarled, two wraith-like forms appearing out of the cloud. The wind buffeted them all, and the genin and their daemons held on to whatever support they could find.

"You broke the rules," Kakashi said. "I hope you're ready for the punishment." He straightened and put his hands together for a seal. Clouds began to loom overhead, and his daemon's fur stood on end, gathering what sounded like, from all the hissing and crackling, electricity.

"Any last words?" she asked.

"But you said…" Naruto began, teeth chattering.

"Yes?" Kakashi urged, waiting for Naruto to continue.

"You said that there were three of us! That's what you said! Six if you count our daemons, like Hiye said to do!" Naruto exploded.

"We're all a team," Sasuke said. "We're all in this together."

"That's right!" Sakura shouted above the howling wind. "We gave our lunch to him because the six of us are one!"

"The six of you are one? That's your excuse?" Kakashi asked, putting his hands on his hips and leaning forward. They all looked prepared to fight, even Naruto and Ehetia, who were still tied up.

Then the buffeting sound stopped, the clouds disappeared, and Hiye put on a grin that contorted the scars around her mouth into gorgeous patterns and shapes. "You pass," she said lightly.

"What?" Sakura and Naruto asked together.

"You pass," Kakashi repeated, and the crinkling of his eye said that he was smiling as well.

"What do you mean?" Igesu asked, disbelieving. "How'd we pass?"

"You're the first squad that ever succeeded," the human teacher said. "The others did exactly what we said, and fell into every trap. They couldn't think for themselves." He straightened, and Hiye sat. The blood from her fur was gone. It seemed as though Kakashi had taken the opportunity to wash her properly while the three genin were eating.

"A ninja must see through deception," the cougar said. "In the ninja world, those who break the rules are scum. But those who leave their friends behind are worse than scum." She looked at the sky with her human, her mouth open slightly in a calming pant, her good eye shining dark gold.

The six genin smiled. Naruto looked like he was about to cry. "You know, they're kinda cool," he sniffled.

"The exercise is over," Kakashi said. "Everyone passes. Squad Seven starts its first mission tomorrow." He gave them a thumbs-up.

"Yes!" Sakura yipped. Igesu leaped into her arms as a genet, curling around her neck and licking her cheek lovingly.

"We're a ninja, Naruto!" Ehetia all but howled out her pleasure. Hiye stepped forward and drew her claws over Ehetia's binding vines. She leaped up and shook the oil out of her fur, then changed into her normal fox form and jumped on Hiye's back, sitting there.

Kakashi smiled and cut Naruto free, but the boy didn't have the same reaction as his daemon. She leaped off of Hiye's back and into Naruto's arms, and his fingers entwined in her fur instantly as she cuddled against his chest.

Digadi and Sasuke did nothing of the sort. Kakashi placed his hand on Hiye's head, and she purred.

"Let's go home," he said.


	6. A Dangerous Mission

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or His Dark Materials.

**Soul Wounds Trilogy  
****Book One  
****The Boy with Two Daemons**

**Chapter Six  
****A Dangerous Mission! Journey to the Land of Waves!**

The day was dry and arid, hot for late spring, even in the Land of Fire. It hadn't rained in a long while, and everyone knew that when it would come, it would be a blessing. However, judging from the scant few clouds in the sky, that blessed rain was a long way coming.

Click. "Sasuke and Digadi at Point B." Click.

Click. "Sakura and Igesu at Point C." Click.

Click. "Naruto and Ehetia at Point A." Click.

Click. "Go slow, Naruto. Okay, Squad Seven... Hm?" Click.

Those were the sounds of linked radios with isolated frequencies, their crackling discreetly heard only by the ninja of Squad Seven. The new genin team had been doing missions for nearly a month now, and they were getting rather proficient. Of course, Naruto and Ehetia continually managed to screw certain aspects of the mission up, like this one.

The cat they were chasing leaped from the boughs of a tree, nimble for a creature of her stature. Igesu's tactic of charming her failed, as he was not a true tabby cat, and the feline had grown suspicious and dashed off. Hiye had nonetheless praised Igesu for his creativity, saying that it would be an excellent asset for future missions. But now the cat was running. The target had moved.

"Follow it!" Kakashi shouted over the radio link. As swift as his order, the three genin and their daemons shot off after the cat, hiding behind trees downwind of her to mask their scent.

"What's your distance from the target?" Kakashi asked, holding the little microphone to his masked mouth. Hiye crouched beside him, tail flicking as she listened in on his thoughts and conversation.

"Five meters," said Naruto. Ehetia was curled around his shoulder as a pine martin, waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Cats weren't normally kept as pets in Konoha, but were used as ratters, and this cat belonged to a rich woman who was absolutely terrified of the rodents. She couldn't possibly live without her cat, and her daemon, a blue budgie, wasn't fit for the job. So it was important that the genin capture this cat and return her to her owner, as cats were expensive and it was time consuming to find a breeder.

"I'm ready," Naruto continued. "Just give the signal."

"I'm ready, too," Sasuke said.

"So am I," Sakura said. Igesu was perched on the tree she was hidden behind as an unassuming squirrel.

"Okay," Kakashi said, concentrating on the amplified noises coming from his radio. "Now!"

With a yell, Naruto leaped out and grabbed the cat. Ehetia quickly turned into a fox and began a fierce wrestle with her, holding her relatively subdued while Sasuke and Sakura explained their situation to their teacher. The other two daemons looked on with mild curiosity and pity at their silly comrade. A bigger form would have been much better for wrestling with a cat.

"Can you verify a ribbon on the right ear?" Kakashi asked Sasuke.

"Affirmative," Sasuke replied. "We've got a positive ID."

"Right," Kakashi said. "Lost ratter 'Tora' captured. Mission accomplished."

"Can't we get a better mission than this?" Naruto suddenly screamed, and because Kakashi had turned up the volume on his radio to hear the sounds of the forest in his students' positions, the blast was twice as huge. Hiye winced and covered her ears, shuddering and moaning while Naruto continued, "I hate cats!"

"Well," Kakashi said after he stopped, looking down at his quivering daemon. "That's not very nice."

"I mean ratters!" Naruto screamed again.

---

Above the academy was the mission room, and Squad Seven had managed to return there, Tora locked in a cage. As soon as her owner saw her, she plucked her from the cage and held her tightly under her arm. The woman was huge, and the force of her just holding Tora was enough to make the cat squeal with agony. The woman's budgie daemon twittered happily.

"Stupid ratter," Ehetia laughed, careful of her words after Sakura gave Naruto a beating for "insulting Digadi's settled form." "She deserves to be squashed."

"No wonder she ran away," Igesu said, sitting beside Hiye as a clouded leopard.

"Now, then," Sarutobi said from the front of the room, holding a paper and scanning it over. "For Squad Seven's next mission, we have several available tasks. Among them: babysitting the chief counselor's three-year-old; helping his wife to do the shopping; digging up potatoes..." Gijega was reading over her human's shoulder, and was laughing quietly to herself. An affectionate flick to her beak from Sarutobi got her to stop and preen her wing.

"No!" Naruto moaned. Sarutobi and Gijega both looked up. "I wanna go on a real mission! Something challenging and exciting—not this little kid stuff! Come on, old man!"

"He's got a point," Digadi whispered to Sasuke from where she was snug against his chest in his arms.

Igesu's brow twitched and his lip curled disgustedly. "He's such a pain," he murmured to his human.

Hiye placed a paw over her muzzle in a daemon's sigh and said aloud, "How the hell did I know this was going to happen?" Kakashi patted her back in a consoling way.

Iruka, sitting beside Sarutobi, lurched forward and slammed his hands down on the table. He'd gotten his daemon her surgery, and though Yideyu still had some trouble flying without causing herself pain, they were both on the fast track to recovery. She sat on his shoulder now, and squawked at the sudden movement. "How dare you!" her human shouted. "You're just a brand new genin with no experience! Your daemon hasn't even settled yet! Like everyone else, you start with simple missions to develop your skills and prove yourself!"

"Are you serious?" Naruto shouted back, and his daemon let out a high fox's growl. "Babysitting is not a mission! It's just a stupid...!" He didn't get to finish whatever he was about to say, however, for Kakashi landed a punch right on the back of his head, and Hiye grabbed a snarling Ehetia by the tail and pulled her back, placing a heavy paw on her spine with the milky white claws unsheathed in warning.

"Will you put a lid on it?" Kakashi asked.

"Naruto!" Sarutobi said sharply. Naruto sat up and rubbed the back of his head, eyes streaming. Ehetia wriggled free of Hiye's grasp and crawled into his lap. "It seems you do not understand the tasks you have been given."

Naruto stopped grumbling and looked up curiously.

"Listen," Sarutobi said, sucking on his pipe. "Many different kinds of requests come into our village every day, from babysitting to assassinations. These requests are carefully recorded"—he gestured to four colored scrolls in front of him—"analyzed, then ranked A, B, C, or D, depending on their difficulty.

"We ninja are also ranked by ability," the old man continued. "Hokage at the top, jounin, chuunin, and genin at the bottom. At the highest level, we select the missions and assign them to ninja with the appropriate skill and experience. If the mission is successful, we receive a fee that supports our village and our work. Since you are untried genin, just starting down the shinobi path, you are given D-level assignments, of course." He held up the green scroll, which held the D-ranked missions.

"You always lecture me like you're my grandfather or something!" Naruto snapped, still sitting on the floor. "But I'm _not_ the little brat that used to pull pranks all the time. I'm a ninja now, and I want a ninja mission!" He turned away, and Ehetia turned a raccoon tail toward those at the front desk.

Kakashi and Hiye both sighed. Hiye nibbled at a scar on her shoulder, which had suddenly given a painful little twinge, and Kakashi rubbed his arm. "We're going to hear about this later," Hiye said to him, licking her fur smooth. Yideyu cawed softly to Iruka just then, and Hiye looked up sharply with narrowed eyes. What had that bird just said about her?

But Iruka chuckled a little bit, focused on Naruto, and Hiye relaxed. Those damn rumors about her still-painful scars had her on edge. She was always afraid (though Kakashi told her that her fear was unnecessary) that she would be hospitalized for her condition, and thus would consciously avoid any hospital herself. Kakashi was the same, feeling her fear as much as he didn't want to. Thankfully, though, Yideyu's comment had not been about the puma's little scratching session.

Sarutobi laughed as well, and said, "Naruto wants us to know that he's not a brat. He's a former brat. And he wants a mission. So be it."

Naruto and Ehetia looked up, surprised that they'd gotten their way so easily.

"Since you are so determined," Sarutobi continued, "I'm going to give you a C-ranked mission. You'll be bodyguards on a journey."

"Really?" Naruto gasped, turning around. Ehetia puffed up into her biggest, proudest form: the fox-patterned wolf she'd taken when fighting Hiye during the bell test. Hiye sensed this, brow arched in curiosity.

_Is that really the biggest she can get?_ she thought. _Does the fox spirit limit her as well as protect her?_

"Who?" Naruto asked. "Are we guarding a princess? Or some visiting councilor?"

"Don't be so impatient," Sarutobi said with a grin. "I will bring him in now. Send in our visitor!"

Behind the eight in the center of the room, the door opened. A tan, weatherbeaten hand appeared first, then another hand holding a large sake bottle. The door opened wide, and in stepped an old man who was clearly drunk, his burly seagull daemon perched on the bindle on his back. Her black eyes were filmy with his drunkenness, where it was obvious they would normally be bright and alert.

"What's the big idea?" the man slurred. "A bunch of little snot-nosed kids?" He took a long drink of sake so that it overflowed into his gray, pointed beard.

Naruto stood up. Ehetia leaped into his arms as a fox. The old man leaned against the doorway. "And you," he said, "the little one with the idiotic look on your face: you really expect me to believe you're a ninja?"

Naruto let out a little roar of anger and began to charge for the old man, but Kakashi held him back. Hiye picked up a squirming Ehetia, her jaws wrapped around the fox's middle, and held her calmly while Kakashi said to a raging genin, "You can't demolish the client, Naruto. It doesn't work that way."

"I am Tazuna," the old man said, "a master bridge builder. My daemon's name is Hedge, but she doesn't talk much. We must return to our country. I'm building a bridge there that will change our world, and I expect you to get me there safely, even if it means giving up your lives."

---

The party was at the village gate, ready to depart. Naruto and Ehetia walked ahead, Ehetia in her signature fox form (which Hiye was worriedly beginning to think she might settle into), and the rest a little farther behind. Naruto whipped around suddenly and gave a huge roaring sigh of achievement and happiness.

"What are _you_ getting so excited about, Naruto?" Sakura asked, arms crossed. Igesu, because his clouded leopard form was not built for travel, was now a lynx.

"This is the first time Ehetia and I've ever left the village!" Naruto said, looking around excitedly. "We're a traveler now!"

"Hey," Tazuna said, pointing to Naruto while looking back at Kakashi, "am I supposed to trust my life to this runt? He's a joke!" The old man was sober now after taking a mandatory medicine the medical corps had given him.

"He's with us," Kakashi said. He gestured to Hiye as he did so. "We're a jounin, so you don't need to worry."

Naruto crossed his arms. Ehetia looked up at him with an indignant grimace on her face. "Why'd we have to get _this_ old geezer to guard?" she asked him sourly, but it was a rhetorical question that Naruto had no answer for. "Let's cut him down to size right now!"

Naruto turned to face the old man, pointing a finger at him. "Hey," he said. "Never insult a ninja; it's a big mistake, and I'm one of the greatest ninja ever! Someday, I'm gonna be the Hokage, and you'll look _up _to me! My name's Uzumaki Naruto, and this is my daemon Ehetia! Remember that!"

Sober or not, Tazuna took out his sake bottle (how many he had, Naruto didn't know) and took a large swig. The old man glanced at him casually. "Hokage are powerful and wise," he said. "You and your daemon are puny and brainless. The day you become Hokage, Hedge and I here will switch places as human and soul."

"Shut up!" Naruto shouted. "We're willing to do anything to become Hokage, no matter what it takes! And when that happens, everyone will have to admit that we're the top ninja, including you!"

Tazuna merely laughed. "Puh," he said. "You can become Hokage ten times over, and to me you'll still be nobody: a loser."

Naruto launched himself forward again, but Kakashi caught him by the collar and held him back just as Hiye snatched Ehetia up in her mouth. "I told you," the human teacher said, "you're supposed to _protect_ the client, not _attack_ him."

---

From overhead an eagle spun its screeching tune, attributing to the hot, dry conditions.

"Say," Sakura said, walking alongside her steadily-going lynx daemon, "Tazuna-dono."

"What is it?" the old man asked.

"Your country is the Land of Waves, right?" the kunoichi said.

"What of it?"

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said, turning to him, "there are ninja in that country too, aren't there?"

"No," Kakashi replied. "There are no ninja in the Land of Waves. But in other countries, there are hidden villages, each with their own different customs and cultures, where ninja reside."

"To the people of this continent," Hiye said, "the existence of shinobi villages means strength. That's how they protect themselves and maintain the balance of power with neighboring countries. The ninja villages are not controlled by any government. They're independent and have equal status."

"A small island," Kakashi said, "like the Land of Waves, has natural protection from the sea, so there's no need for a ninja village." Sakura found herself marveling at her teacher's uncanny ability to communicate with his daemon so flawlessly. Their explanations flowed into each other like hot honey and water, perfectly combined. "The five shinobi lands that posses hidden villages," the human teacher continued, "are the Lands of Fire, Water, Lightning, Wind, and Earth. They each occupy vast territories. Together, they are known as the Five Great Shinobi Nations."

The two teachers thus continued their explanation of the lands of the continent, explaining the names of the hidden villages and their leaders. Hokage cropped up. Hiye said that the Kage, which meant "shadows" were extremely important to the hidden villages.

Sakura gasped happily. "Hokage-sama's really important, then, isn't he?"

"Tch," Igesu growled to her, "is that old man really such a big deal? I'm not buyin' it."

"Hey!" Hiye snapped, and Igesu started abruptly, falling back on his haunches. "You just doubted Hokage-sama, didn't you? That's what you said to your human!"

Igesu shook his head madly from side to side. "No, no, Hiye-sensei!" he mewed, "I'd never doubt the Hokage!"

"Good," the puma said, but there was a smile in her voice.

Kakashi placed his hand on Sakura's head affectionately and tussled her hair. "Well, anyway," he said, "there are no ninja battles in a C-ranked mission, so you can relax."

"And we're not going to run into any foreign enemy ninja or anything like that," Sakura said, relieved.

Kakashi laughed. Hiye rasped her tongue over her muzzle. "Not likely," she said.

So the party crossed a bridge over a rain-deprived stream. Its waters hung low beneath the wooden planking, signifying its needy thirst. They passed a small pool in a deserted clearing, and listened to the birdsong as they went. Hiye entertained Igesu and Ehetia with little translations of what the birds were saying, along with a little songbird's myth that she'd learned from a sparrow a few years ago.

As she laughed along with her students, Kakashi took a passing glance at the puddle, then seemed to dismiss it. The thought flashed between him and his daemon was not dismissed, however, and Hiye went on calmly to tell a puma's story that she knew from a wild mountain panther, of the grand Mountain Thunderer.

"He used his back legs to kick boulders over the edge at enemies," she said, stretching out her own, which were markedly larger than her front legs. "Like a rabbit, almost, but not so delicately." She stamped the ground with her back paw.

Suddenly, there was a fierce snarl behind the party. Hiye, who had fallen back, found herself locked in the jaws of two gray wolfhounds. One held her by the undercut of her abdomen, and the other at the junction of her neck and head, forcing her down. She let out hisses of pain with each push toward the earth, struggling against the wolfhound's tremendous pressure.

They were daemons, the two dogs, and their humans were no more than a step behind them. Instantly, armed with claw-studded gloves, they unleashed a long shuriken-chain that wrapped itself around Kakashi, effectively binding him. The three genin and their daemons leaped back, startled, while the two enemy ninja pulled on their chains. Before their very eyes, Kakashi was torn apart, and Hiye flickered out of existence.

Suddenly, while still shocked about his teacher's death, Naruto found the enemy ninja behind him. The two hounds were staring at Ehetia hungrily, their jaws dripping with slaver. Hiye's blood, along with everything else about her, had vanished.

"Now it's your turn," one growled, her teeth flashing white in the sunlight.

Naruto turned around in time to see the two ninja readying themselves for their attack upon him. He and his daemon were both frozen with fear—staring into the eyes of two bloodthirsty dogs, Ehetia was shaking badly. Just as one lunged, a small stag with a brilliant rack pounded its way through, forcing its antlers underneath the larger dog and hurling her skyward as she yelped. With a hefty kick, it knocked the other out of the way.

Sasuke, to help Naruto, landed on the ninja's arms and threw shuriken and kunai to make a lock for them against a tree. He pulled hard, ripping the chain apart.

The stag, who had by now identified itself as Igesu by way of scent, was standing in front of Ehetia, head lowered threateningly. The dogs were pacing in front of him, wary of his rack.

But the ninja righted themselves quickly and dashed towards Sakura. Igesu, unable to break the taboo even if he wanted to, couldn't take his eyes off of the dog daemons, who'd taken advantage of his momentary fright to snap at his ankles. He kicked one sharply in the mouth, sending it sprawling.

Sakura, spurred by her own daemon's bravery, jumped in front of Tazuna, a kunai at the ready. One ninja came from underneath her, claw ready for an uppercut-like attack, but suddenly, Sasuke had intervened there as well. Digadi had gone to aid Igesu, using her smaller body to confuse and entrap the dog daemons in Igesu's antlers.

But then Kakashi was there again. He caught both ninja by the neck as Hiye bowled a dog over and held it still with the threat of her teeth in its jugular, the other dazed by the attack on its human.

Naruto and Ehetia, who had both been knocked to the ground, looked up in shock and surprise. They'd thought Kakashi was dead—yet here he was now with his daemon, protecting them all.

"Hi," he said. His daemon sat down on the wolfhound she was holding and let out a greeting purr.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Igesu shouted, shaking his heavily racked head. "Hiye-sensei! You're alive!"

"But he was...!" Naruto began, looking back at the site where Kakashi had fallen. There was nothing there but torn logs.

"He used the replacement jutsu," Ehetia said, shaking herself out.

"Naruto," Kakashi said, turning around, "sorry I didn't help you right away. I didn't mean for you or Ehetia to get hurt. I just didn't think you'd freeze up like that." Hiye stood and hoisted one wolfhound and then the other across her narrow back, struggling slightly with the weight before regaining her footing.

"Igesu," she said, "that stag form was good thinking. I can tell that your gift is with seeing what you need when you need it—keep that in mind when you're ready to settle. And Digadi, that was an excellent way to take advantage of your form."

Igesu nodded hastily before becoming a genet and leaping into Sakura's arms. Now that the adrenaline had died, he needed her comfort as she needed him. Digadi merely sniffed.

Tazuna let out a nervous sigh.

As Hiye and Kakashi moved to bring the enemy ninja and their daemons to some place less problematic, Kakashi stopped in front of Sasuke and Sakura. "Good job, Sasuke," Kakashi said. "Very smooth. You too, Sakura."

"We were useless!" Ehetia whispered to Naruto. "They all acted like they'd done this a thousand times!" She pointed her muzzle to Sasuke, Sakura, and their daemons. "Didn't they feel scared at all? They look so calm—not a scratch on them!" She began to tremble with fear, embarrassment, and hate. "They had to come up and save us!"

"Hey," Sasuke said, turning toward Naruto. Naruto leaped up, and Ehetia bristled.

"Yeah?" the blonde boy asked.

"You're not hurt, are you? Scaredy-fox."

Ehetia curled her lip at the insult directed at the both of them.

"Naruto!" Kakashi said sharply from where he was still holding the enemy ninja with Hiye. "Stand still. These ninja have poison in their claws. We need to take it out of you quickly."

Naruto stiffened. Ehetia quivered.

"We have to open the wound and remove the poison," Kakashi continued. "It's in your blood, so don't move around. That spreads the poison with each heartbeat."

"Tazuna-dono," Hiye said, turning her good eye toward Tazuna. It glinted in the sunlight. Tazuna started, unused to having a daemon speak directly to him other than his own. "We need to talk."

---

Once Kakashi had bound the ninja and Hiye had summoned her vines to bind the daemons, Kakashi said, "They're chuunin from the Village Hidden in the Mist. Their specialty is relentless attack."

"You can tell by their daemons," Hiye said gruffly, clearing her throat. It seemed to be bothering her. "Wolfhounds need to chase down enduring creatures like the wolf, thus, they need to be enduring themselves. They keep fighting, no matter what the sacrifice." She turned to the bound wolfhounds sharply. "Stupid creatures," she snapped. "Were you trying to impress me or piss me off?"

"Relax, Hiye," Kakashi said curtly, and she subsided.

"How did you know about our ambush?" one ninja asked.

"A puddle? On a clear day, when it hasn't rained in weeks?" Kakashi asked skeptically.

"In that case," Tazuna asked, "why did you leave it for the genin to do the fighting?"

"Hiye and I could have taken them out quickly," Kakashi explained, "but then we'd have learned nothing. We had to know who their target was." Hiye looked at Tazuna out of the corner of her good eye again. "What they were after."

"What are you getting at?" Tazuna asked defensively.

"This," Kakashi said. "I wanted to know if they were after us, ninja attacking ninja, or if they were after you, the master bridge builder. When you put in your request, you asked for standard protection from robbers and highwaymen. You didn't say there were ninja looking for you, hunting you down."

"If we knew this," Hiye said, her calm returned, "it would have been a B-ranked mission or higher. Our task was simply to get you to your destination and protect you while you finished building your bridge." She narrowed her eyes. "If we knew we'd be fielding attacks from enemy ninja, we would have staffed differently and charged for the cost of a B-ranked mission.

"Apparently you have your reasons," Hiye continued, noticing the guilty look on Tazuna's face, "but lying to us is not acceptable." In that moment, she sounded like an annoyed mother. Her tail flicked idly. "We are now beyond the scope of this mission."

"We're genin," Sakura said, still holding Igesu. "This is too advanced for our level of training. We should go back. And we really need to treat Naruto's wound to get the poison out as soon as possible. Back in the village, we can take him to a doctor."

Kakashi and Hiye both chanced a look at Naruto and Ehetia, who were still stiff and rigid with anxiety.

"Naruto's hand could become a problem," Kakashi said. He sighed. "I guess we should go back to the village."

Naruto drew a kunai suddenly and stabbed it into his wound, shocking everybody. Hiye visibly winced.

"Why are we so different?" Naruto growled. "Why are we always..."

"Naruto!" Sakura cried, rushing forward. "Stop that! What are you doing?"

"We worked so hard to get here!" Naruto snapped. "Pushing ourselves until it hurt! Training alone for hours—anything to get stronger, to reach our dream! We will never back down again and let someone else rescue us! We will never run away." Blood dripped from his hand onto the ground. "And we will not lose to Sasuke and Digadi. Upon this wound"—he held up his hand—"I make this pledge: bridge builder, we'll complete this mission, and protect you with our fangs and claws. A real ninja never gives up, and neither will we. Don't you guys worry about us. We'll be fine! Now let's go!"

"Naruto," Hiye said. Her nostrils flared. "Um, that was really cool how you took the poison out and all, but if you lose any more blood, you're going to die. You just cut yourself, you know." Her tail flicked in slight amusement.

There was a long silence before Kakashi came to Naruto's side and said, "Good idea to stop the bleeding now. Seriously."

Naruto freaked out and shook for a few minutes before Kakashi managed to grab hold of his hand. Hiye tried a trick she'd learned over the years to calm a person down: she flipped Ehetia on to her back and lay down beside her, poised above her neck with her warm breath pluming down upon her. The fox lost her tension almost immediately.

"Naruto," Sakura chided, "you've got a self-abusive personality. It's called masochism."

Kakashi looked at the hand in his own larger one, automatically rubbing the soothing circles into the flesh like he did so often with his daemon. But something curious made him stop. Looking down, he saw that the wound was almost shining, already beginning to close. It was like a daemon's wound, but at the same time, totally different.

"Um, uh," Naruto stammered, looking at Kakashi looking at his hand. He'd noticed the thumb had stopped moving across his skin, and since he'd seen him do that with Hiye along her scars, he immediately began to worry. Kakashi looked up. "You have a really serious look on your face," Naruto said, trying to remain calm. He was finding it difficult, even with Hiye holding Ehetia down. "You're scaring me—am I okay?"

Kakashi removed his hand and took from his pouch some bandages, wrapping them silently around Naruto's already nearly-healed wound. "You should be fine," he said, but Hiye's urgent thoughts were distracting him slightly.

_What was it? The nine-tails? Dust? Chakra? Tell me, Kakashi!_ Over and over and over again, frantically.

_The nine-tails,_ Kakashi thought back to her, and her body stiffened while her mind relaxed. Soothing circles. Over and over and over again, but calmly.


	7. The Assassin of the Mist

A/N: For all you Sakura-haters, she gets hurt in this chapter. :P

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or His Dark Materials.

**Soul Wounds Trilogy  
****Book One  
****The Boy with Two Daemons**

**Chapter Seven  
****The Assassin of the Mist**

The mist was so thick that visibility only extended to the ocean directly beneath their large skiff. It pressed in on all sides, claustrophobic, suffocating. Hiye had all but disappeared, her good eye a dim, luminescent gold in the little fragments of light reflecting off the water droplets in the air. The moisture had beaded on her whiskers and the whiskers of the other daemons, and only Hedge and the dog daemon of the rower seemed uninhibited by the atmosphere. The only sounds were the lapping of the waves against the skiff's sides and the creak of the push-pole. The motor had been turned off.

"The bridge isn't far now," the rower said quietly. "Our destination's just ahead. The Land of Waves."

Slowly, as they drew up beside it, the faint outline of the bridge began to appear. It was large, industrial, built by cranes and made of steel and manpower. The young ninja looked up at it in wonder—there was nothing like this in Konoha. They had never seen anything like this before in their entire lives.

"Tazuna-dono," Kakashi said. Hiye was leaning against his arm quietly, her eyes drooped. She seemed tired, her expression holding a lack of ardor that seemed unnatural for any creature. But her good ear wandered to and fro ceaselessly, capturing all the noise that she could in the quiet. "Before we reach the pier, I want to ask you something."

Tazuna was silent.

"The men who are after you. I need to know why. If you don't tell us, I'm afraid I'll have to end this mission when we drop you ashore."

Tazuna still said nothing. Kakashi looked at him sharply, his arm draped over Hiye's back, his fingers entwined in the thicker fur of her underbelly. If there was ever any portrayal of desperation from him, this seemingly nonchalant action was a sure sign. In the mist, though, no one noticed.

"I have no choice but to tell you," Tazuna said at last. "No, I want you to know the truth. Like you said, this is beyond the scope of the original mission. The one who seeks my life is a very short man who casts a very long and deadly shadow."

"A deadly shadow?" Hiye murmured listlessly. "Who is it?" She seemed half concentrated on everything that was around her. Her eyes were closed now, her tail flicked in agitation from side to side. She was tense—her claws dug into the wooden planking beneath her paws, tearing up the grains.

"You know him," Tazuna said, noticing this but dismissing it as her human was listening to him closely. "At least I'm sure you've heard his name before. He's one of the wealthiest men in the world: the shipping magnet, Gato."

At this, Hiye snapped to attention, staring at Tazuna with the full brunt of her gaze. Her tail stilled, her ears trained forward, even her torn one, as far as they could. Her good eye flickered, searching the bridge builder's face. It seemed that yes, she and Kakashi had heard that name before.

"Of Gato Transport?" Kakashi asked, shocked. "He's a business leader—everyone knows him."

"Who? What?" Naruto asked excitedly. Hiye shushed him with one of her stares.

"Gato is a powerful tycoon from a famous company—that's true," Tazuna said, closing his eyes. "But beneath the surface, with the same ruthless methods he uses to take over businesses and nations, he sells drugs and contraband using gangs and ninja. It was one year ago when Gato first set his sight on the Land of Waves. He came to our island and used his vast wealth to take total control of our transport and shipping. Anyone who tried to stand in his way simply disappeared. In an island nation, a man who controls the sea controls everything. Finance, government, our very lives! But there's one thing he fears: the bridge. When it is complete, it will join us to the land, and that will break his control. I am the bridge builder."

"So that's it," Sakura mused. "Since you're the one building the bridge, you're standing in this gangster's way."

"That means those guys we fought in the forest," Sasuke added, "were working for Gato."

"I don't understand," Kakashi said. Hiye had returned to her listless mood. "If you knew he was dangerous, knew he'd send ninja to eliminate you, why did you hide that from us?"

"Because the Land of Waves," Tazuna said, "is a small, impoverished nation. Even our nobles have little money. The common people who are building this bridge, they can't pay for an A- or B-ranked mission. It's too expensive. If you end the mission when you drop me ashore, there will be no bridge. They'll assassinate me before I reach home."

"We have no choice," Hiye said suddenly, snapping out of her stupor after a long silence. "I don't hear them now, but they will come, Kakashi. This land, it screams and cries. It bleeds." She shuddered. "I can't stand it. I want to end it."

"How do you know, Hiye-sensei, what the land says?" Igesu asked.

"The land is covered in Dust," Hiye said, closing her eyes. "All daemons can commune with it on some levels, because it resides within us, and only the rare human can, but there is a daemon art that flows with it, a never ending teaching. I myself have only just begun to scratch the surface. I'll begin teaching it to you all when we're in a less... violent place." She sounded drained.

"We're approaching the shore," the rower said after Hiye had fallen silent. She'd collapsed back into her dazed mood, listening to the Dust of the land. "Tazuna, we've been very fortunate: no one has noticed us so far."

"Nice going," Tazuna said.

They entered a long, dimly lit tunnel, and when they emerged, the mist was gone. It seemed as though this place had a ward against it, leaving it bright and dotted with the occasional cloud and seagull. Trees that grew directly out of the water, their roots twisting into the sand beneath the surface, grew scattered amidst floating and land-borne houses built on decks.

"That's as far as I go," the rower said once all of his passengers had stepped off the skiff onto one of the sandy decks. "Good luck."

"Right," Tazuna said. "Thank you for taking such a risk."

"Just be careful," the rower said. He started the motor and went safely away.

"All right," Tazuna said once he had gone, "take me to my home, and I mean 'get me there in one piece.'"

"Got it," Kakashi said. Hiye was now fully awake. It seemed as though she was done gleaning the land of knowledge.

"The next ninja they send won't be chuunin," she said to her human once they were in the solitude of the forest trail, "they'll be jounin."

Kakashi sighed. He knew his daemon was right, as much as he hated to admit it, and while she might have fun fighting whoever they came up against, he was most certainly not in the mood. To protect three genin and their own daemons from harm? That was a ludicrous idea.

Hiye flicked her ear and whispered to him, "They're already here."

---

"No wonder the Demon Brothers failed in their mission," a large blank panther said beside her human, shifting slightly in her crouch. She licked her muzzle hungrily as the huge man beside her reached for the equally huge sword on his back. "It's the Copy Ninja from the Village Hidden in the Leaves, and his daemon, the Painter of Death." The panther shuddered with anticipation. "Kakashi and Hiye."

Her human smirked beneath the bandages covering his mouth, and then the pair leaped off the branch they were hiding behind.

---

"Look out!" Kakashi called as the panther and her human leaped from the tree. A huge sword came spinning out of the branches above their heads, and they all ducked to avoid the fatal blow that would be received if they were even merely nicked. It buried itself in the tree beyond, high above, and suddenly, balancing upon it, was a huge man dressed in leather and cow-patterned moleskin. Beside him stood his daemon, a black panther larger and stronger-looking than Hiye. It was easy to see that dominating the smaller puma would be easy for her: whereas Hiye's strength resided in her springboard-like back legs, this daemon's strength was in her powerful shoulders. She was a ripper and a tearing machine, a brawler. And she reflected her barrel-chested man perfectly.

"That must be…!" Hiye growled, standing up and training all of her attention toward the newcomers.

"Well, well," Kakashi said, "if it isn't Momochi Zabuza and Tavter, rogue ninja from the Village Hidden in the Mist."

"Rogue ninja?" Ehetia said, quivering beside Naruto. "Whatever! Nothing's gonna stop us!" She changed into a wolf and launched herself forward, but Hiye shouldered her aside.

"You're in the way," Kakashi said lowly. "Get back."

"But why?" Naruto asked. Kakashi had stopped him from following his daemon forward.

"He's not like those other ninja," Kakashi replied. "He's in a whole other league. If he's our opponent, I'll need this." He reached up to his headband and pulled it up and out of the way of his left eye. Thoughts of blindness there vanished, replaced by a sense of foreboding among the genin. That eye was blood red, bits of black floating in the iris along with the pupil. And, the students saw, the scar over his eye matched the scar over Hiye's perfectly, stroke for violent stroke.

"This could be treacherous," Hiye said, pushing a shocked Ehetia back with little effort.

"Kakashi with the sharingan eye," Zabuza said, turning to look. "Did I get that right?"

Off to the side, both Digadi and Sasuke stiffened.

"It's too bad, eh?" Zabuza continued. His panther daemon stared down at Hiye with crisp yellow-green eyes. "You'll have to hand over the old man."

"Sharingan? What is that?" Ehetia asked Naruto quietly, but obviously, he was just as curious as she.

"What's he saying?" Igesu asked his own human. "Does he have some special power? That eye is creepy, but something like that can't possibly work! Not if he's daemon's blind!"

"Now quick!" Hiye ordered suddenly, not taking her eyes off of the panther. "Manji formation! Protect the bridge builder, and stay out of this fight! Kakashi and I taught you teamwork. Use it now!" She turned to him. "I'm ready, Kakashi!"

"Well," the panther purred, crouching low on the sword hilt, "looks like we get to see the sharingan in action, eh, Zabuza? This is an honor."

"Everyone keeps saying 'sharingan! Sharingan!' Can someone please tell me what 'sharingan' is?" Naruto asked frantically.

"Sharingan," Sasuke said, "a rare power. It resides in the eyes. The user of this doujutsu can instantly see and comprehend any taijutsu, genjutsu, or ninjutsu, then reflect the attack back on the attacker. The sharingan is a special, rare form of doujutsu. However, there's more to the sharingan than that---a lot more."

"You got it right, boy," Zabuza said, "but you only scratched the surface. The sharingan can analyze an opponent's technique, and then copy it down to the smallest detail. Normally, the daemon has the power too, but obviously, not this time. As for you, jounin, in the assassination unit of the Hidden Mist, we have a standing order to destroy you on sight."

A thick mist began to settle, bringing visibility to almost zero.

"Your profile was in our bingo book," Zabuza continued. "It called you 'the man who copied over a thousand jutsu.' Kakashi, the Copy Ninja. And it called your daemon the Painter of Death, but that's a curious title. I wonder why?"

The two humans and their cat daemons stared hard at each other.

"What?" Igesu asked. "Are Kakashi and Hiye-sensei really that famous?"

"Wait a minute," Digadi breathed next to Sasuke's ear from where she was perched on his shoulder, "the sharingan is a rare trait that only occurs in _our _clan. His name is Hatake, not Uchiha."

"Enough talking," Zabuza said, crouching down much like his daemon. "We need to exterminate the old man. Now."

Immediately, the three genin and their daemons surrounded Tazuna in a protective chain, Igesu as a strong-bodied deer, Ehetia as a wolf, Digadi as her settled serval form.

"So," Zabuza said, "I'll have to eliminate you first, eh, Kakashi? So be it." Faster almost than was visible, he pulled his sword from the tree with a sickening crack and leaped away with his daemon to balance on the water with her.

"He's over there!" Naruto shouted, shocked at the speed.

"He's standing on the water!" Sakura gasped.

The panther had her head tilted at a taunting angle, showing her throat to Hiye with a clear intent. _Come at me, puma. I'm confident enough to show you my neck._ Zabuza had one arm held high above him, the other pressed to his chest, both hands held in signs. The water began to swirl around them both.

"They're building up a huge amount of chakra!" Hiye said to her human, ignoring the plain way Tavter was provoking her.

"Ninja art!" Zabuza said. "Hidden mist jutsu!"

And they disappeared, leaving only a leaf in their wake fluttering to the ground. Kakashi and Hiye walked forward, both cautious and wary.

"Sensei!" Sakura said.

"They'll come after us first," Kakashi said.

"But, who are they?" Sakura asked.

"Momochi Zabuza and Tavter," Kakashi said, "the ex-leaders of the Hidden Mist Assassination Unit. They're both masters of the silent killing technique."

"Silent?" Naruto asked shakily.

"As the name suggests," Hiye said, "it happens in an instant, without sound or warning of any kind. It's so fast that you pass from this life without realizing what has happened. The sharingan cannot fully neutralize it, so don't lower your guard."

"Well, if we fail," Kakashi said, "we only lose our lives." He sounded almost bored.

"How can you say that?" Igesu snapped. "I don't want to go out like a light!"

But neither Hiye nor Kakashi answered him, and he lowered his head again in a defensive position.

"The mist is getting thicker and thicker!" Naruto said. Ehetia's hackles were on end, her legs stiff and rigid. She was looking around with her slit, blood red eyes wide, trying to see through the fog.

"The Land of Waves is surrounded by ocean," Tazuna said. "The swirling mists are ever-present."

The mist grew so thick that Kakashi and Hiye seemed to vanish. It was a white-out, but far away from the dangerous cold of the north, blinding and binding.

"Eight points." It was Zabuza's voice. "Larynx, spine, lungs, liver, jugular, arteries, kidneys, heart. Now, which will be our attack points?"

The genin and Tazuna stiffened.

Kakashi leaned forward and performed a hand seal; Hiye crouched, holding herself firm against the blast of chakra her human sent to blow the mist away.

Sasuke and Digadi froze, terrified. "I feel like I can't breathe," she whispered to her human, clinging to him. "One shallow breath, one tiny movement of the eye is enough to draw their attack. It's suffocating!" Her claws dug into his shoulder. In his shared fear, he didn't notice. "If it goes on like this, I'll go insane!" Blood beaded along his skin where her claws pricked and kneaded. It began to stain his clothes. "The clash of two jounin---I've never felt anything so chilling!" The claws sank in further. "It's as if our life is being choked off! No! Pick up the kunai!" He drew one, and seemed to struggle with stabbing himself or not.

"Sasuke! Digadi!" That was Hiye. Her voice was assertive and loud, and it snapped both human and daemon from their reverie. Her nostrils flared---she smelled the blood and had become anxious for a minute. "Digadi, relax your claws. You must never harm your human like that."

"Calm down," Kakashi said. "We'll protect you with our life. All of you. We will not allow our comrades to die. Trust us." He turned and smiled a little eye-crinkling smile, but there was a strange, gaunt shadow in his face, and one in Hiye's grim expression.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Zabuza said.

Igesu suddenly let out a deer's scream. Tavter was balanced on his back, her claws on the side of his neck, and Zabuza was right between the genin and Tazuna. "Dare me to move," the panther said. "I have no qualms about ripping out the throat of this succulent little thing." She drew her tongue over the back of Igesu's shivering neck. "It's over!"

Kakashi and Hiye both turned, Kakashi focusing his sharingan on Zabuza just as Hiye shut her blind eye. The sword swung; Kakashi and Hiye leaped; the puma bowled Tavter to the ground and managed to hold her heavy paw on the larger cat's throat; Kakashi held Zabuza back. There was a kunai in the larger man's stomach, and the wound was dripping. But it wasn't true blood---it was water.

Both clones exploded, dousing their opponents.

"Sensei!" Ehetia barked. "Behind you!"

Kakashi turned in time to see Zabuza swinging his sword upward, and Hiye whirled to see the dark shape of Tavter coming for her back. Kakashi was sliced cleanly in two just as Tavter latched her crushing jaws around Hiye's exposed throat. But Kakashi instantly became water, as did Hiye.

"The water clone jutsu?" Tavter asked, her jaws dripping with it. "It can't be!" She turned just as Hiye's powerful back legs met with her jaw. The force of the kick brought her head back and her front paws off the ground, and she flipped on to her back and side, mercilessly skidding to a halt as the dust began to clear. Suddenly there were puma teeth at the panther's throat, threatening her life, just as Kakashi had a kunai at Zabuza's.

"Now it's over," Kakashi said.

The genin and Tazuna stood, surrounding the four in the center of the clearing, shocked at the skill and speed of what had just occurred before their eyes.

"All right!" Naruto said excitedly after gulping down what tasted like bile.

But Zabuza and Tavter merely began to laugh low, haunting laughs that chilled the very air.

"Over?" Tavter asked. Hiye's grip tightened on her neck. "You really don't get it, do you? Your technique is nothing but an imitation, Hiye. Your human is weaker than you. Zabuza and I will never be defeated by copy-kits like you."

"What was that?" Hiye growled. "Say it again, Tavter. I'll crush down on your throat like it's a twig."

"Even though you can barely fit your mouth around it?" Tavter said, laughing still.

"You are full of surprises, though, Kakashi" Zabuza said. "You'd already copied my water clone jutsu when you made your little speech. Very skillfully executed. You made your clones say those words to draw our attention while you hid in the mist, waiting for us to make our move."

There was a pause, then, "Nice try, but we're not that easy to fool."

Yet another Zabuza materialized behind Kakashi, breathing over his neck as he spoke, and a third Tavter was dragging Hiye away from the one on the ground by a scruff grown taught with scar tissue. The second pair of water clones burst.

Kakashi ducked under the swinging sword that came for him immediately after. It completed its turn, digging itself in the ground so that with the hand he had been using, Zabuza could no longer move it. So he switched hands and used the sword as a lever to kick Kakashi in the back, sending him high into the air.

Meanwhile, Tavter had dragged Hiye to the ground after the two had wrestled like bears, twisting and snapping and yowling and roaring, and flipped the puma on to her back. She stared at the burn on her throat for a moment before snapping her jaws down on Hiye's foreleg, eliciting a pained cry. Digging one paw into the earth as a pivot, Tavter swung Hiye just before Kakashi had been hit. Hiye hit the water first with a shout, staining the liquid around her red as she came up, gasping for breath. The splash beside her told her that Kakashi had been thrown in as well.

"Now!" Zabuza shouted. He pulled his sword from the earth and charged forward with Tavter at his side, but they both stopped short as soon as they saw the small spikes that littered the ground. "Trying to slow us down."

"Sensei!" Naruto cried. The blood hadn't stopped pouring from Hiye's wound. It wasn't normal. It refused to heal. But they'd all heard the snap of her foreleg and they all knew that daemons with broken bones don't heal the same as daemons with cuts. Kakashi would have to set the bone first, and doubtless he was feeling the pain of it in his own forearm.

"I can't believe they got kicked through the air like that!" Igesu said worriedly.

But Hiye was paying no mind to her broken leg. "This isn't normal water," she said to Kakashi. "It's dense."

Zabuza darted up behind the two and performed a set of hand seals before either could react. "Water prison jutsu!"

"No!" Kakashi growled just before the sphere of water closed around him and his daemon.

Hiye rammed her shoulder against the wall of their prison, trying fruitlessly to escape.

"There's no use, purblind," Tavter said, coming to stand on the shore. "Especially not with that lame leg of yours. Your left side does seem to be taking a beating, doesn't it?" She curled her lip in a sneer.

But she was right; Hiye was favoring her left side to the point where she sagged against the prison wall on her right. Kakashi reached over without a second thought to snap her bone back in place. The leg healed instantly after the deed was done, with not even a mark to show that it had been broken other than the blood staining the paw. She righted herself.

Zabuza laughed. "This prison's made of water," he said, "but it's stronger than steel. It's hard to fight when you can't move, isn't it?"

Tavter smiled again. "You should have kept the daemon outside of the prison," she said. "I would have loved to tear her apart right in front of her human's eyes. But now her leg is fixed. It wouldn't be as fun. So much for the great Kakashi and Hiye."

Hiye bared her teeth. Since most daemons were brawlers, taunting was all a part of their strategy. The daemon that went berserk would be the one to lose. So far, Hiye was angry, what with the insults being thrown at her, but she was wise enough not to lose control.

"I'll finish you both off later," Zabuza said, and Kakashi started, staring up at him. "Yes, Kakashi, even your daemon. I'll take care of her personally _first_. I'll carve up all those little scars and make sure you feel every bit of it." He smirked as he watched Kakashi's expression change from fear to anger. The imprisoned ninja gritted his teeth. "But first, your little friends will have to be eliminated." He turned to them. "Water clone jutsu!"

"He's even more skilled than I thought!" Hiye said. "A jutsu with one hand!" In a desperate attempt, she shouted, "Daemon Art: Tail-blade jutsu!" Her tail began to flatten into a blade, and once it was sharp enough, she slammed it against the wall of water---to no avail.

"Don't waste your chakra, Hiye," Kakashi snapped. Now that the adrenaline had begun to slow, his arm was beginning to hurt where Hiye's foreleg had been broken, and he nursed it discreetly. No doubt the pain of it was adding to his irritation. "Cutting through water doesn't work."

So they merely had to watch with bated breath as a Zabuza clone appeared before them to stand beside the original Tavter.

"You think wearing a headband makes you a ninja?" Zabuza said to the trembling genin. "You think that having a settled daemon is what it's all about? When you've hovered between life and death so many times that it doesn't faze you, then you may be called a ninja. When you've become so deadly that your profile is entered in my bingo book, then you may be called a ninja. But to call upstarts like you ninja"---he held his hand up, and without Kakashi to prevent it, a thick mist began to swirl---"is a joke."

"He disappeared again!" Ehetia whispered once the mist had settled. Suddenly, a shoulder was shoved into her neck and she fell backwards onto her side just as her human was kicked down next to her. She struggled to breathe, gasping and coughing, and her human felt her distress and joined her. His headband was thrown off in the process and fell with a clang to the ground. Zabuza's clone stepped on it roughly.

"You're just brats," he said. The contempt in his voice was almost surprising.

"Naruto!" Sakura called out as she, Sasuke, and their daemons watched fearfully.

"Listen!" Kakashi shouted suddenly from his prison. His hand was clamped tightly over his wrist, and it sounded as though he was struggling to keep his voice loud and not fall into a pained hiss. "Get the bridge builder and run! You can't win this fight! Zabuza's using all his power to keep Hiye and me in this prison, so he can only fight you with his water clone and Tavter. But the clone can't go far from his real body and…"

He stopped when he felt the sly green-eyed gaze of Tavter fall upon him. "And what about me?" she hissed. "I can. I haven't been cut, not like Hiye, but Zabuza and I are separated. I'll follow your brats anywhere."

Hiye lowered her head as if to shield her neck from that penetrating gaze.

Kakashi ignored both of them. "His daemon won't break the taboo! If you run fast enough, you can escape! Now go!"

Tavter frowned at this. Apparently Kakashi spoke the truth. Even with Zabuza's threats, his daemon was not about to touch another human willingly.

"Run away?" Digadi hissed. Sasuke gritted his teeth. "Not an option. That became unthinkable the moment you got caught, sensei. No matter how fast we run or how far we go, they'll track us down and wipe us out.

"If we try a Manji defense formation, they can get around it in an instant. In the end, if we're on our own, we're finished. Our only chance of survival is to rescue you and Hiye-sensei."

Kakashi seemed about to protest, but Sasuke said, "We've got to do it!" With a yell, he rushed forward with Digadi at his side. She broke away to dance between Tavter's legs like she'd done with Igesu's antlers, but both Zabuza and the panther merely smiled.

Sasuke threw a handful of shuriken toward Zabuza. He deflected them easily with his sword. Knowing that his opponent wouldn't be able to see past the huge blade, Sasuke took the opportunity and leaped into the air above him, preparing himself for an aerial strike. So Zabuza reached out a hand and caught him by the throat on the down thrust.

Tavter, meanwhile, wasn't paying much heed to Digadi's fluttering moves until Zabuza had gotten Sasuke in his grasp. As soon as Digadi faltered, her head snapped out and she grabbed the little cat in her jaws. She and Zabuza threw their opponents away in unison, Digadi's hide speckled with blood from wounds that healed instantaneously.

"Sasuke, no!" Sakura cried.

"He got Sasuke!" Naruto shouted from where he sat shaking with Ehetia.

"Naruto!" the wolf daemon shouted. "Above you!"

There was Zabuza. Naruto turned toward him fearfully.

"We've got to get away!" Ehetia howled. "If we don't, we'll be dead!"

Naruto turned to run, and landed on his injured hand. A sharp, pin-pricked pain fled up his arm and he paused, shuddering. He stared at it silently.

_Upon this wound, I make this pledge._

Slowly, he and Ehetia steadied themselves. They turned to look back at Zabuza. Tavter stood beside him now. Naruto and his daemon stood. Ehetia stood with her hackles on end, her fangs longer and sharper than any normal wolf could hope for, bared to the gums. Her snarl was one that fed the nightmares of children. It was the only sound in the clearing, and chilled any others that might spring up into silence.

Suddenly, they both charged forward, much like Sasuke and Digadi had done, only this time, Naruto's only aim was the headband Zabuza stood upon. Ehetia's teeth flashed angrily as she reached for Tavter's haughtily exposed throat with a snarl.

"Naruto, Ehetia, no!" Hiye shouted. "Ehetia! Calm down!"

"Fools," Tavter hissed. As Ehetia came forward, the panther drove her head down and grabbed the wolf around the top of her neck, hurling her back and away. Zabuza did the same with Naruto, and the two genin skidded to a halt in front of their comrades. Ehetia's neck dripped with blood. She was lucky Tavter had not crushed down. She would have been dead.

"What are you thinking, charging in by yourself?" Sakura screeched. "Even Sasuke and Digadi couldn't get to him! We're only genin! We can't defeat a jounin! What did you think you'd accomplish by that?"

But Ehetia's growl silenced her as the wolf stood. She stumbled slightly before regaining her bearings. She could see Hiye staring at her with wide eyes. Ehetia's own were wide with fighting spirit, the pupils slit more noticeably than normal and the red irises almost glowing.

Naruto stood as well. In his hand was the headband, clutched tightly in his fist.

"That's all he wanted?" Igesu asked.

"Hey, you," Naruto said, "the freak with no eyebrows."

Zabuza narrowed his eyes.

"Put this in your bingo book: the ninja that will become Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves"---he tied his headband around his forehead where it belonged---"is Uzumaki Naruto and his daemon Ehetia."

Ehetia let out a snarl to prove their point and stared into Tavter's green eyes, and Tavter stared back just as calmly.

"I don't like the noises coming out of her mouth," Hiye muttered to Kakashi so that only he could hear. "They're not of the nine-tails, but she shouldn't be acting so vicious like that."

"All right, Sasuke," Naruto said. "Listen up, can you hear me?"

"Yeah, I hear you," Sasuke replied.

"I've got a plan."

"Now he's got a plan?" Digadi asked her human. "This guy…"

"All right, guys," Naruto said, "let's go wild!"

Igesu changed suddenly from a stag to a wolf, and came to stand beside Ehetia, mimicking her actions. His teeth were bared to the gums, his eyes barely visible beneath the folds of skin scrunched up along his muzzle. His snarl was just as loud as hers. But while her body was more evenly distributed, he was built for power and was markedly larger than his counterpart. Digadi came to stand between them both.

Tavter gave a huff of disapproval. "Big voices for such pups. Those fangs won't even reach my fur." Then she let out a roar of her own which silenced the wolves. They were used to Hiye's scratchy yowls and had no idea that Tavter, as a panther, had the capacity to roar. It echoed out among the trees before finally fading.

"You think your plan's going to keep you in the game?" Zabuza asked scathingly once Igesu and Ehetia had been silenced.

"This isn't good!" Hiye said, stiffening.

"What are you doing?" Kakashi shouted at the genin. "I told you to run! This fight was over the moment we got caught! Now take off!"

"Your mission is not to prove how brave you are!" Hiye snarled. "It's to save the bridge builder! Stay on mission!" She began pacing her watery prison, back and forth next to Kakashi, watching with her good eye and straining to hear.

"Bridge builder?" Naruto asked, turning to him.

Tazuna was silent for a moment, then he said, "Well, I guess this all happened because of me, because of my desire to live. But I won't let that stand in your way now. Forget about me! Do what you have to do to save your sensei!"

Hiye let out a snarl of anger at that and slammed her shoulder against the water. Tavter's roar quickly overpowered her smaller sounds until once again, there was only silence.

"All right," Sasuke said to the cougar. "You hear that?"

"You ready?" Naruto asked.

Zabuza and Tavter laughed yet again. "You really haven't learned anything, have you?" the panther's human asked after his laughter had died. "Still playing your little game---pretending to be ninja. When I was your age, this hand had already crushed many opponents, and Tavter had been settled for a long time."

"There's only one way to kill a human by way of his daemon," Tavter said. "You either have to tear out their throats"---she gave a meaningful glance towards Hiye---"or you have to crush their skulls."

Ehetia and Igesu backed instinctively away from their opponents, toward the safety of their humans. Hiye and Kakashi gritted their teeth.

"Zabuza, the demon," Kakashi said.

"Oh," the real Zabuza said next to him. "So I was in your book too, huh?"

"Long ago, in the Village Hidden in the Mist, also known as the Blood Mist Village, before a student could become a ninja, there was one final test," Kakashi explained to the shivering genin.

"You know about the graduation exam?" Zabuza asked curiously.

"What graduation exam?" Naruto asked. "What's the big deal, anyway? We had graduation tests, too." Zabuza's laugh was no longer as frightening, so this time, instead of shaking, Naruto steeled himself to it.

"Did you have to annihilate the other students to pass?" Zabuza said, and Tavter smiled wickedly. "Imagine young ninja like you: eating together, training together, and then comes the final exam, only the rules changed! You couldn't stop until you destroyed your opponent!"

And then Tavter twisted her neck slightly so that the genin could see, shining almost white beneath her dark fur, a long, thin scar that ran the length of her spine.

"He was your friend---shared your dreams---and now it's him or you."

"That's so cruel!" Sakura said.

"Ten years ago, in the Village Hidden in the Mist," Hiye said, "the graduation exam changed. The year before, a dark evil had filled the school with terror." She glared harshly at Tavter, who smiled back. "Without pause or hesitation, a young boy and his panther daemon, not even a ninja, approached the class. They took down over a hundred other students."

"It," Zabuza said, a shadow across his face, "it felt so… good!"

The genin stiffened. The hackles of their daemons flattened instantly, and if they were humans, they would have looked extremely pale.

An elbow to his stomach flung Sasuke back. Another elbow drove him into the ground. He screamed in pain, as did Digadi, and even though the wolves were protecting her, Tavter was so fast that they didn't even notice her presence until the cat's stomach was torn and she was thrown down next to her human. The wound healed instantly, but that didn't stop it from being excruciatingly painful.

"Digadi! Sasuke!" Hiye called worriedly. "Dammit!"

Zabuza put his foot down on Sasuke and Tavter raked her claws over Digadi's side, watching the blood well just as the skin knit itself shut. As Zabuza reached for his sword, Hiye and Kakashi could only watch.

"You're nothing," Zabuza said.

"Stop right there!" Naruto said, his hands falling into the shadow clone seal. "Shadow clone jutsu!"

At least twenty sets of Narutos and Ehetias appeared, all of the Ehetias snarling ferociously. Not even Tavter's roar would have been able to drown them out.

"Shadow clones?" Tavter asked, slightly impressed. "And there's quite a few of them. No matter. Whether it's ten or a hundred fangs, not one will reach me. Come for me, dog!"

Sasuke struggled into a sit, pulling the cringing Digadi close to him and cuddling her to his chest. Ehetia took up Tavter's challenge, and all of them charged for her at once. Three ducked underneath her to snap at her abdomen and chest, two went for her throat, the rest for her back, face, tail, and sides. All the Narutos attacked as well, dog-piling onto Zabuza.

For a moment, neither Zabuza nor Tavter could be seen underneath all the clones, then Tavter roared and in a flash of black fur and white fangs and claws, all of the Ehetia clones burst into smoke, and Zabuza used a similar move to dispatch the Naruto clones.

While one of the Naruto clones went flying, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a huge shuriken: a demon wind shuriken.

Tavter immediately began a mad wrestle with the true Ehetia. She flipped the wolf onto her back and made for her throat with a "Die!" sounding in the air, but Igesu quickly rammed her with his shoulder, and she flew to the side. Igesu now stood over his dazed companion, fangs bared, eyes wide with terror and adrenaline. She drew up beside him. "Thank you," she said.

"Help me deal with her," Igesu growled.

The three daemons dodged around each other, feinting and striking, attacking each other relentlessly until Igesu and Sakura let out a unified scream of pain, and the movement stilled. Sakura fell to her knees, clutching her hip. Over Igesu's pained snarls, Tavter held him by the junction of his back leg and abdomen, crushing down with all the force she could muster. He whimpered and screamed, kicked and fought and changed rapidly, but could not escape even when, as a russet-colored puma, he kicked Tavter sharply in the face. She merely held on tighter, and he shouted in agony.

Ehetia, momentarily dazed, leaped upon Tavter's back and latched on to her neck. Tavter let out a muffled cry and instantly let Igesu go, whipping her head around to drag Ehetia down by the paw with a yelp on top of him.

Naruto, meanwhile, had thrown Sasuke the shuriken, and Digadi, still hurting horribly, could do nothing but watch.

"Demon wind shuriken!" Sasuke said. "Windmill of shadows!"

Tazuna, who had crouched down to help Sakura, stared aghast at the huge weapon. And still, helpless, Hiye and Kakashi could only watch.

"A shuriken?" Zabuza said. "You'll never touch me with that."

But Sasuke, taking no heed, threw it anyway, aiming for, not the clone, but the real Zabuza. The ninja merely caught and held it steady as though it was his weapon preparing to be thrown from his hand.

The shuriken's shadow continued racing toward him, and with no free hand, he had no choice but to jump.

"I told you, a shuriken can't touch me!" he shouted.

But as the shuriken flew past, Naruto appeared and threw kunai towards Zabuza. Now the enemy ninja could neither jump nor catch, and, shocked, he released the water prison jutsu.


	8. The Jaybird and the Fall

A/N: As you can see just from the title of this chapter, this story is beginning to deviate towards one of my own design, rather than it being so canon. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or His Dark Materials.

**Soul Wounds Trilogy  
****Book One  
****The Boy with Two Daemons**

**Chapter Eight  
****The Jaybird and the Fall**

Zabuza let out a roar of anger as he released his water prison jutsu. Twirling the huge shuriken in his hand, he made for Naruto, but with a sharp clang, he was stopped by Kakashi's own hand, holding the weight of the shuriken at bay.

At the same time that Kakashi leaped into the fray, Hiye flashed out of the water, moving almost faster than the eye could trace. Tavter was mere inches away from digging her fangs into Ehetia's exposed throat, and the puma jumped upon her, knocking her over and holding her down with a heavy paw on her trachea. Her eyes glinted angrily; her claws extended into Tavter's flesh.

"I'm going to kill you, panther," Hiye said lowly. "I'm going to kill you, and your human will die with you."

"Is that why they call you the Painter of Death?" Tavter asked mockingly. Hiye curled her lip.

"No," she said. "But I can show you why." She seemed to be growing more skeletal by the second, but only from Tavter's perspective. The genjutsu would not extend past the target. Hiye's flesh began to burn and decay away, revealing first muscle, then sinew, then, finally, bleach-white bones. They clicked and clacked as she moved and spoke, her raspy voice coming from the grinding together of the bones along her neck.

Tavter stiffened.

"This is why," the skeleton Hiye said, "they call me the Painter of Death."

Tavter kicked and scratched and fought, but Hiye held her firm. From the outer perspective, the enemy panther was stiff and rigid as though she had been dead for some hours.

Meanwhile, Kakashi was still holding Zabuza at bay, struggling now that his enemy had collapsed the shuriken so that its entire weight bore across his hand guard.

"Kakashi-sensei! Hiye-sensei!" Igesu cried happily, though seeing the intense concentration on both of their faces and the barely contained anger underlying Hiye's madly twitching pelt, he quieted.

"Naruto, Sasuke," Kakashi called. Naruto had fallen into the water after his attack, and had just come up for air. "Your teamwork was flawless. Good job."

Naruto grinned happily.

"I got distracted and lost my grip on the water prison," Zabuza said with an annoyed grunt.

"Don't flatter yourself," Kakashi growled. "You were forced to let go."

"Wh-wh-what is this bullshit?" Tavter managed to ground out from where she lay beneath Hiye's smaller weight.

"This bullshit is death, kitty," Hiye said. "I thought you were used to it by now, but apparently you can't handle the decay."

Tavter let out a roar and forced her head upward, latching on to Hiye's shoulder. She let out a disapproving grunt. "You still bleed," the panther said. "Your jutsu is shit, purblind!" It was Hiye's right shoulder that Tavter bit, unwittingly making it more difficult for Kakashi to hold back Zabuza's massive shuriken. His arm dropped a few inches, and, hissing with pain, he gave a final push and hurled the weapon off into the distance.

"I bleed?" Hiye asked angrily. "_I_ bleed?" She brought a back paw up and slammed it down into Tavter's stomach. The panther instantly let go, coughing up blood. Hiye brought her forepaw back to press down on her adversary's throat. "At the end of this, I will look like stone compared to you."

"Hiye-sensei! Behind you!" Ehetia suddenly cried. Hiye whirled around just in time to dodge Tavter's take-down leap. The water clone burst beneath her, drenching her stomach and sides.

Tavter cricked her neck. "You'll look like what compared to me, purblind? While your human over there may be copying my human's every move, you don't have the sharingan. You are _blind_. How does it feel?"

And they began to wrestle, and the ferocity of it was so great that Igesu and Ehetia were afraid to join the fray.

Meanwhile, Kakashi and Zabuza were also fighting. Kakashi matched Zabuza stroke for stroke as they moved and fought, summoning a water dragon at the same time as his adversary, even _speaking_ the same words as Zabuza almost before they were spoken. Watching, waiting, almost like genjutsu. But as Naruto watched, he grew afraid. Both men seemed unconscious of their daemons. They seemed to have separated from them, moving like hollow ghosts but with all the speed a man could muster.

Naruto scrambled out of the water, away from them, as fast as he could, and went, shivering, to his own daemon.

It seemed impossible. Hiye and Tavter were making noises of pain. Bones were snapping in and out of place, flesh was tearing, fur was being pulled loose and muscles rendered useless, but their humans took no notice. They didn't even flinch when either daemon screamed.

But finally, Tavter did something that sent Hiye flipping head over paws backwards. She struggled to stand after skidding to a dusty halt, baring her teeth and snarling, but only managed to get one paw beneath her. She glared at Tavter, who was now advancing towards Tazuna. Igesu, Ehetia, and Digadi immediately blocked him, but the panther took no notice of them.

"Kakashi!" Hiye shouted, trying to get her second paw to move.

Kakashi didn't even look at her as his hands pulled themselves together into a seal and he shouted, "Water style: giant vortex jutsu!"

Tavter's head whipped up in shock. She raced towards Kakashi, passing a startled Hiye more quickly than a bird's shadow, and lunged for him, aiming to break the taboo and kill him. The vortex caught her in the side just before she could, sending her, along with her human, back toward the trees half-drowned.

Kakashi was becoming more acutely aware of Hiye's pain every passing second. She was still supporting herself on that one leg, but it was obviously becoming difficult: her chest heaved with exertion and her three other legs hung useless behind and under her body. She was covered in blood, hers and Tavter's. So before the pain could fully set in on him, her human drew several kunai and threw them, successfully pinning both Tavter and Zabuza to the tree they had been slammed against.

"You… you copied my move before I even had a chance to use it!" Zabuza said. "Can you… see into the future?"

Kakashi crouched on the bough above him. Igesu had rushed to Hiye's side in his russet puma form and was now helping her to stand. Nothing was broken, but it took a little while for the wounds to heal, and only once the pain and water had receded did Kakashi speak.

"Yes," he said. "This is your last battle. Ever."

Suddenly, Zabuza let out a scream which died almost as soon as it left his mouth. Tavter jumped and twisted in the air, then vanished, the kunai that had been stuck in her flesh clattering to the ground. The ninja slid, dead, to the forest floor, and Hiye, shocked, leaped to Kakashi's side to investigate what had just occurred.

"Senbon?" she asked, gazing at the long needles protruding from Zabuza's neck. "They've killed him, Kakashi. Tavter is gone." She whipped her head around to gaze at the boy standing on an opposite bough. His blue jay daemon perched on his shoulder quietly, tilting her head quickly from side to side before fluttering down to alight next to Zabuza's head. Hiye took a pace back to allow the small bird room.

"You're separated?" Kakashi said, noticing the distance between the human and his daemon.

The boy nodded. "Yes, but as I'm a tracker, that is only protocol."

"You're not but fifteen," Hiye commented, "and yet you and your jaybird have the right to wear such a mask." She bowed in respect, but Ehetia's snarl startled her, and she turned to regard the wolf beside her with a steady gaze.

"Who are you?" Ehetia snapped as the jaybird fluttered back up to her human and whispered something in his ear. Naruto stood beside the wolf daemon, and if he had fur, he would be bristling more than she was.

"My daemon read the Dust surrounding him. He has no vital signs. You can check for yourself," the boy said to Kakashi, ignoring Naruto and Ehetia completely.

Kakashi pressed his fingers along Zabuza's neck. Indeed, there wasn't even the tiniest of pulses to herald life, and Tavter was nowhere to be seen. He looked up at the boy, who bowed in return.

"Thank you," he said. "We've been tracking Zabuza for a long time, waiting for the chance to finally take him down. Unfortunately, with my daemon being so small and unable to fight, it was difficult. As you may have noticed, Tavter was more willing to break taboo than she let on. And it is clear that she was strong. Just look at your own daemon."

Hiye was spattered with blood. It dripped from her fur and her back legs were shaking slightly, her breathing still laborious.

"And now, to answer your question, wolf daemon," the boy said, "I am an elite tracker ninja from the Village Hidden in the Mist. It was my duty to stop the rogue ninja that lies dead before you now, before he could spill the secrets of our village, accidentally or not, to others."

"He's no ordinary kid," Hiye muttered so that only Kakashi would hear.

But, in response to the boy's words, Ehetia merely bared her teeth and stood stiff and rigid beside her human. Naruto kept looking from the dead Zabuza to the boy high in the trees with his little jaybird daemon, to the battered and bloody Hiye, and back again.

"Who do you think you _are_?" Naruto snapped, pointing an accusing finger at the boy.

The boy said nothing. Ehetia snarled a warning snarl. Hiye shouldered her roughly to calm her down (leaving a spot of blood on her fur), and Kakashi placed a hand on Naruto's own shoulder.

"Easy, you two," Kakashi said. "They're not the enemy."

"That's not the point!" Naruto replied hotly. "Did you see what he did, just like that? Zabuza was huge, and Tavter tore Hiye-sensei apart! Just look at her! You can barely see her fur under all of that blood! And you looked like you didn't feel it at all…"

"That's enough," Hiye said sharply.

But Naruto shook his head. "And then this kid, who's hardly older than I am, took him down like it was nothing! Three needles, that's all it took! What does that make us? We're just bumbling around, not even knowing what we're doing! How can you sit down and tell me 'that's enough' and expect me to accept that?"

Kakashi placed a hand on Hiye's head and ruffled her ears. He came away with his fingers red.

"Even if you don't accept it," he said, "it still happened, Naruto, and you need to calm down." He took the hand that wasn't dripping with his daemon's blood and patted Naruto's head gingerly. "In this world, there are kids that are younger than you, but stronger than me, with their daemons long settled."

The boy held out a hand and disappeared in a wind, reappearing beside Zabuza's body. He hoisted it over his shoulders.

"Your struggle is over for now," he said. "My daemon and I must deal with the remains. Please excuse us." And they disappeared in a third small twister.

"His scent vanished!" Ehetia gasped. "It's like he was never here at all!"

Kakashi pulled his headband back over his eye. Hiye visibly relaxed.

Naruto whirled and ran to the base of a tree, and then he began to punch the ground angrily. Ehetia howled out her anguish. It was a loud, angry howl that carried far into the distance.

"What are we doing here?" Naruto snarled beside her. With each punch he brushed his knuckles against her dark orange fur. "We're nothing! I can't believe it!" And with each punch, Ehetia's cries grew louder. The others could only stand and watch.

At last, Kakashi went forward and grabbed Naruto's wrist, and Hiye let out a puma's chirp to call Ehetia back from wherever she'd gone in her mind. It was a piercing call---the howling abruptly ceased.

"As ninja," she said, "the things we encounter are never easy, but we must deal with them. Save your anger and your hate for the next battle." Kakashi released Naruto's arm, confident that he'd quieted.

"We haven't completed our mission," Kakashi said. "We still need to get the bridge builder to his bridge."

"But sensei," Sakura said, "what about Hiye-sensei? Shouldn't she wash herself before the blood dries and hardens?"

"I'll be all right, Sakura," Hiye said with a small smile. "I appreciate the concern, though, heart. And thank you, Igesu, for helping me to stand when I fell." She dipped her head to the russet-colored puma, who smiled sheepishly.

"No worries…" he said, flicking his tail.

"Sorry I caused all this trouble for you," Tazuna said with a laugh. "I'll have my daughter run a nice hot bath for you all when we get home."

Hiye stretched, her spine popping. "Ooh, that sounds lovely," she purred. She brought herself back up. "Okay, then, let's move!"

Igesu leaped forward to pace beside her as a hardy bobcat. But as she turned to move, she froze and fell forward slightly. She stumbled but caught herself before her legs buckled beneath her and she collapsed onto her side, her muscles twitching madly beneath her bloody pelt. Kakashi was frozen too for a moment before he fell, and Igesu stumbled back to Sakura, afraid. Digadi, startled by the sudden fall, leaped into Sasuke's arms. Ehetia and Naruto could only stare.

"What happened?" Sakura asked frantically.

"Kakashi-sensei! Hiye-sensei!" Naruto said worriedly. But there was no movement from either of them, for Hiye had stopped twitching altogether and her breath was shallow and weak. "What do we do?"

"Igesu," Sakura said, "turn into something big to carry Hiye-sensei so we don't break taboo."

Igesu nodded. He needed some characteristics that no one cat had: a huge amount of balance, a low center of gravity, large paws and something for traction, a huge chest, heart, and lungs, and a broad back. So he chose three different cats and combined them instantly. Snow leopard for its huge, balancing tail and low center of gravity; cheetah, for the proper body and non-retractable claws; tiger, for the paws and physical strength and endurance. It was a hybrid of creatures that none in the clearing had ever seen before. He was shaped like a shaggy cheetah, striped like a tiger, with moderately thick legs and huge paws with the thick claws sticking out and digging into the mud, all of him red and gold and white and black in color. His tail was the length of his entire body, and thick like a snow leopard's, and his green eyes mirrored his human's. He would settle this way eventually, but not now, not yet. Instantly, though, he knew it was his favorite form.

For a moment, everyone could only stare in shock at his beauty and practicality, then he said, "Digadi, Ehetia, help me, will you?" He crouched down and offered his back, and the other two daemons helped pull Hiye on top of him so that she hung across him as comfortably as possible. He was large enough to carry her easily for long distances, and shaggy enough so that the blood seeping into his fur would not rub uncomfortably against his skin, but small enough too, so that if the need arose, Hiye could return the favor.

Then, with Naruto and Sasuke supporting Kakashi between them, they started their way towards Tazuna's home.


End file.
